
Class 



Book._i 



55 



THOUGHTS, 

CHIEFLY DESIGNED 



AS 



PREPARATIVE OR PERSUASIVE 



TO 



PRIVATE DEVOTION. 



BY 

JOHN SHEPPARD, 

AUTHOR OF 

« THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY, DEDUCED FROM 

SOME OF THOSE EVIDENCES WHICH ARE NOT 

FOUNDED ON* THE AUTHENTICITY 

OF SCRIPTURE." 






SIXTH EDITION. 



" La meditation n'est pas Poraison ; mais elle en est Ie 
fondement essentiel." Fenelon* 



LONDON 



WHITTAKER, TREACHER, AND Co. 
AVE-MARIA-LANE. 

1832. 



3 V 1 ? 1 5 

' S 5 



LONDON : 

HENRY BAYL1S, JOHNSONS-COURT, FLEET-STREET, 



TO MY MOTHER * 



Oh thou, that in some far off realm of rest 
With kindred spirits waitest, till the voice 
Of Seraphim invite to loftier joys 
And brighter mansions, — thou maternal soul, 
Maternal as the form in which thou cam'st 
With daily love to greet me, till the embrace 
Of death, that welcome envoy to the just, 
Withdrew thee gently from thy near abode,— 
Thou wouldst not have me dedicate my page 
Save to that Lord whom all thy powers obey'd : 
And mine— far less devoted— shall aspire 

* Who marked in the first edition many passages which she 
preferred; and departed this life April 2, 1824. 

a 2 



IV 

To such true dedication ; — but 'tis meet, — 
'Tis the permitted solace memory claims ; 
'Tis in accordance with thy Lord's command; 
'Tis but to honour feebly her whose crown 
Of righteous years would I had honoured more,- 
To inscribe the page to thee. 



Though friendship seal 
These thoughts with her approval, and the mind 
Of good men yield a suffrage which perchance 
Nurtures too much the teeming root of pride, 
—Nay, had each plume that intellect and taste 
And pure devotion point, enhanc'd their praise, — 
All ought to be less treasur'd than these marks, 
Trac'd with a simple pencil, by the hand 
Of a fond parent ; — whose enfeebled sight 
And pious lips bent o'er the filial line 
Unwearied ; uttering praise for life prolong'd, 
Because, in its last wintry weeks, T bore 
This volume to her solitude ; where oft 
Her pleas'd affection still its leaves review'd; 
Till death, unclasping heaven's eternal book, 
Shew'd the deep indigence of earthly thought, — 
By that contrasted splendour quite reveal'd ! 



This hand enfolded mine, while helplessly, 
In mute instinctive fondness, yet I hung 
Upon thy bosom ; it sustain'd my course 
Yet unassured and tottering ; from the lips 
Of infancy it wip'd off many a gush 
Of fear and sorrow; from the school-child's eye, 
Oppress'd by tasks impos'd, with downcast gaze 
Foreboding inability and scorn, 
It dried the trembling drop, while soothing words 
Pour'd all a mother's comforts through the heart. 
— Nor less maternal as it feebler grew ; 
For e'en in latest months its tender grasp 
Upheld the giddy steps and help'd the sports 
Of children's children, nor would own the toil. 



True — 'twas untaught to wake melodious wires, 

And to compose the pallet's artful hues 

With shadowing skill ; but often, though unnerv'd 

By long infirmity, would still transcribe 

In lonely hours, with diligent delight, 

The hallow'd numbers of some Christian bard; 

Or periods where the love of God and man 

Had glow'd from consecrated tongue. 

a 3 



VI 

Even when 
The swiftly liberating angel came, — 
It seem'd his solemn embassy had staid 
For thy last labour : the yet recent task 
Of that dear hand, — which, at the setting sun, 
Sank paralyz'd, until it rise from dust 
In deathless honour,- — was a task of love. 
It pen'd the fervent wish, the genuine prayer 
Of" charity," to a far sever' d friend 
In Asia's island groves;* it cheered her zeal 

* This excellent and amiable friend, Mrs. Burton, partner 
(in the best sense) of the Rev. R. Burton — then a Missionary 
in Sumatra, afterwards in Hindostan, — has since " rested from 
her labours," leaving memorials of her friendship, zeal, and 

benevolence, in many Christian hearts. -While the fifth 

edition of this work was reprinting, the painful news arrived 
of Mr. B.'s decease, at Patna, in Sept. 1828. In him the cause 
of Missions has lost a much esteemed promoter, and two infant 
orphans (in England) a remaining parent. But " the God of 
all grace," and " Father of the fatherless," who has ordained 
that his servants should be " not divided" longer, can overrule 
each public and private bereavement to the happiest ends* 
Some notices of the characters and exertions both of Mr. and 
Mrs. B. have since been published by the writer of these 
pages, in " Two Discourses, occasioned by the deaths of the 
Rev. E. C. Daneill, and the Rev. R. Burton." 

Whittaker, and Co. 1829. 



Vll 

For works of self-denying mercy there ; 
And beckon' d toward that haven of the blest, 
Where saints whom centuries and seas divide 
Shall join in endless harmony. 



Thy soul 
Was musical, though jarred by early griefs; 
— Elastic heaven-ward, although press 9 d with care ; 
And when its fond solicitudes for all 
It loved were lull'd awhile, it rose full fain 
To high and holy musings: following up 
The flight of stronger souls, as if nought lack'd 
But a new wing, to bear it to the skies, 



Now the new wing is given ; and thou dost turn 
With smiling wonder back to " thoughts" like these, 
So dark, — so infantine,— so unenlarg'd — 
So feeble to the emancipated strength 
Of heavenly knowledge and immortal joy ! 

Oh ! be the chalice of thy joy but crown'd 
With this sweet foresight, — that thine offspring soon 
And whom they cherish, shall ascend to share 



via 

Thy bright maturity of saintly bliss : 

Kept by his mighty power who " car'd for thee,'* 

— Midst thousand snares, and countless wanderings, 

By Him that guides, and chastens, and restores, — 

Till from this tearful brief mortality 

They rise, to mingle in thy faultless song ! 



PREFACE, 



He who would produce what may profit others 
by influencing their mental state and disposition, 
must be guided chiefly by what he judges and 
feels the most adapted to benefit himself. In 
attempting to provide succours for moral and spi- 
ritual disorders and weaknesses, we can make no 
preparatory researches analogous to those of the 
surgeon, when he gains hints for the relief of 
disease from the anatomy of morbid subjects. We 
may, indeed, learn something from confidential 
intercourse ; but although we were depositaries 
of auricular confession, still the most intimate and 



X PREFACE. 

analytical knowledge of the heart must be gained 
by the inspection of our own. This, in intellectual 
and moral anatomy, is the only subject to which 
we have free and full access. Even here, the 
mischief is too abstruse for us ; insomuch, that a 
sacred writer has exclaimed, " Who can know 
it IV And if it be thus with our own hearts, how 
much more must it be with those of others, which, 
in many respects, are so much less open to our view. 

Consequently, in the choice and management 
of moral and spiritual topics, we cannot expect 
to offer what is best except for a certain class ; 
i. e. for those who as to internal character most 
resemble ourselves. 

It is hoped that the following Thoughts may 
conduce to strengthen the principle and assist the 
engagements of piety, in some minds of the reflec- 
tive and questioning class, not sanguine in tem- 
perament, u strong in faith," or " filled with 

joy- 1 ' 



PREFACE. XI 

If this hope be reasonable, they ought not to 
be withholden from an apprehension of critical or 
theological strictures ; because the most moderate 
probability of usefulness, as to interests which are 
incalculable, might well justify a far graver hazard. 

It may also be remarked, that only to the class 
above-mentioned will any religious helps, besides 
the Sacred Scriptures,* be very acceptable, as 
such. Christians of a higher and a happier order 
have better internal resources for awakening and 
enlarging devout sentiments and affections ; a few 
words from the treasury of scripture, remembered 
or sought according to the impressions and occa- 
sions of the hour, may conduct such into a course 
of spontaneous thought, far more interesting and 
beneficial to them than printed pages can offer. 

Some of these papers are on subjects so ele- 
mentary in theology and in devotion, that the 

* To which every Christian will account all religious helps 
merely secondary and supplemental. 



Xll PREFACE. 

charge of triteness may be incurred both as to 
their selection and their treatment. It can only 
be answered, that in proportion to their common- 
ness is their essential importance, and that if 
similar thoughts have been often more fully and 
forcibly developed in systematic treatises or com- 
plete discourses, they are here offered in a brief 
and less regular form, which is more consonant 
with the leading design of this volume.* 

On the other hand, it was not in the writer's 
plan to debar himself from all ideas and expres- 
sions which would be misplaced in a tract or 
discourse entirely popular ;f nor could this require 
to be noticed, were it not that the title indicates a 
general use. No other, however, appeared so com- 

* Two Pieces were added to the second edition,— Nos. xxiii. 
and xxiv., besides the Note A, and the Postscript to Note F. 
To the third edition were added, No. xxv. and the Note G. 
To the fourth edition, an Alphabetical Index was annexed. 

-f- The notes appended are not necessary to the pieces which 
have given occasion to them. They are chiefly designed for 



PREFACE. Xlll 

pendiously descriptive of the object which is 
chiefly pursued. 

In several pieces a larger share of citation has 
been inserted than is usual in the popular religious 
works of our day ; but as this is drawn from 
writers of acknowledged excellence, it is believed 
that if the judicious reader find it appositely in- 
troduced, there will be no portion of the volume 
which he would less wish excluded. 

There is something unpleasing to the writer in 
that seeming egotism, or obtrusion of personal 
feeling on the public, which attaches to what is 
composed in the manner of private reflection ; yet, 
as this manner seems, in some instances, best 
suited to the primary use of the work, it has 
not, where it naturally occurred, been declined 
or altered. 

the more literate class of readers, and may be best perused 
apart. In some of them, such readers will feel an especial 
interest, on account of the characters to whom they relate. 

b 



XIV PREFACE. 

Entertaining a regard for the sincere and devout 
of various Christian communions, which, whatever 
be its strength or weakness, is, if he know him- 
self, unfeignedly impartial, the author of these 
" Thoughts S has much satisfaction in the hope 
that they can excite no prejudice in those who 
differ on subordinate points, if happily agreed 
concerning the great facts and doctrines of our 
u most holy faith " 

Several incidental occasions have been taken of 
glancing at the evidences by which that faith is 
supported ; chiefly however at those of the indirect 
or presumptive kind. In former editions a design 
was intimated of treating this important subject 
more generally. That design has been since pur- 
sued, and in some sort fulfilled ;* not indeed in 
the manner originally contemplated (" by Essays 

* In two volumes, entitled, " The Divine Origin of Chris- 
tianity, deduced from some of those Evidences which are not 
founded on the Authenticity of Scripture."-— Whittdker and 
Co., 1829. 



PREFACE. XV 

abstracted from the treatises of distinguished 
authors," &c), because it appeared, after more 
deliberation, preferable " to take a single depart- 
ment," and to pursue " my own order of thought, 
while freely using, and distinctly acknowledging, 
the assistance of others. 1 '* In the Introduction 
to that work the change of plan is noticed, and 
the reasons of my preference are explained.* 

It is published uniformly with the present 
volume ; and though necessarily of a very differ- 
ent character, may, it is hoped, by the divine 
blessing, be rendered conducive, in its measure, 
to the same great purpose. 

* Divine Origin. Introd. p. xxi. 
Frome, March, 1832. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Preface ix 

I. 

On a right Sense of the Divine Greatness 1 

II. 

On the Omnipresence of Deity , 7 

III. 

On the Efficacy of Prayer. . 17 

IV. 
On Apathy and Deadness respecting revealed Truth 26 

V. 
On the Imperfection of all human Thought and Lan- 
guage in the View of the Creator , 31 

VI. 
On the Greatness of the Blessings which we seek in 

Prayer 43 

VII. 
On the Importance of Divine Influence upon the 

Thoughts 53 

VIII. 
On exemption from severe bodily Disease and Harm, 

and its Improvement . . . . t 63 

IX. 
On intercessory Prayer for Relatives and Friends . . 70 



XV111 CONTENTS. 

PAGE- 

X. 

On the Means by which our Thoughts of the moral 

Perfections of Deity may be elevated 81 

XI. 
On seeking to excite in ourselves a Spirit of joyful 
praise ............. .... >-••«.. ........... . 93 

XII. 
On the duty of making every part of private Worship 

specific * 101 

XIII. 
On aiming at large views of the prevalence of Good 
in the Universe, as deducible from the revealed 

perfections of its Author 108 

XIV. 
On Torpor of Mind with regard to spiritual Objects 

and Interests . ^ « ........ ... ....... . 122 

XV. 
On the Encouragement which the intercession of 
Christ affords to prayer .... ... . . . . . ...... ...... 132 

XVI. ......... 

On the Influence of Slothful and Sensual Inclinations 139 

XVII. 
On that strong pre-occupation of the Mind which 
unfits it for Devotion ; and on the means of coun- 
teracting it 144 

XVIII. 
On special and recent Sin as forming an urgent reason 
for contrite Prayer 156 



CONTENTS. XIX 

PAGE. 
XIX. 

On the duty and importance of Prayer for our fellow- 
Christians 162 

XX. 
On endeavouring, amidst Dejection, to " look at the 

Things which are unseen" • 1 79 

XXI. 
On the Duty of remembering, in a sinful or insen- 
sible temper of mind, how the Almighty can 

correct * 184 

XXII. 
On that discouragement in Prayer which arises from 

the want of sensible Fervour and Joy 193 

XXIII. 
On the means of maintaining a devotional Habit and 

Spirit in a Life of Business 204 

XXIV. 
On the prevalent Unbelief which frustrates Prayer, 
and the imperfect Faith which may be errone- 
ously imagined to do so 224 

XXV. 
On the devotional Tempers proper to Conva- 
lescence 247 

XXVI. 
On Anniversaries, as peculiarly prompting us to 

serious Devotion , 264 

XXVII. 
On the Capacities for Worship in Heaven 272 



XX CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

NOTES. 

Note A. 

Professor Brown.— Views of Heathen Philosophers 
on Prayer 289 

Note B. 
Divine Influence gratuitous 291 

Note C. 

Analogical Language of Theology. — It obviates an 
Objection to the Scriptures 292 

Note D. 
Immensity of the Divine Works 298 

Note E. 
Hartley on the value of Revelation 306 

Note F. 
Lord Byron. — Sceptics. — De la Harpe • . 307 

Postscript to Note F. 
Correspondence with Lord Byron, and Reflections. . 311 

Note G. 

Abbadie on the Difficulties raised concerning 
" Grace." Further illustration of these 329 

Index, Alphabetical, at the end. 



I. 



ON A RIGHT SENSE OF THE DIVINE GREATNESS. 

u He that cometh to God, must believe that he 
is." — How indisputable and self-evident a truth is 
this, that real worship implies a belief in the 
existence of its object ; and yet have not I some- 
times addressed the Deity with such carelessness 
and irreverence of mind as might well induce 
doubts whether I had any sense of that adorable 
majesty, that infinite grandeur which is essential to 
the Perfect Being, the Maker and Upholder of all 
things ; consequently, whether I had any proper 
belief that He is, and whether my worship were 
any thing more than a compliance with some indis- 
tinct apprehension that he may be ? It is true, no 
finite no created mind, however superior to the 

B 



THE DIVINE GREATNESS, 



human, can contemplate or worship the incompre- 
hensible God as He is ; but, on the other hand, no 
mind, however feeble and limited, can really think 
of a Being who hath " stretched forth the heavens," 
and " established the earth," without a profound 
impression of his greatness. If, therefore, I 
" come to God, believing that he is, /> I must come 
with a sentiment of deep veneration, with a solemn 
sense of his attributes. If this be wanting, my 
belief in his being must for the time be regarded 
as in a state of suspension or dormancy, and I 
come not unto Him, but to a sort of sign or name 
existing in my thought, utterly inadequate to re- 
present, even to the lowest capacity, Him whom it 
signifies. This may admit of illustration from the 
sublimest kind of idolatry, the worship of the 
sun. If we could suppose a worshipper of that 
luminary to acquire the knowledge of its magnitude 
and distance which our astronomy teaches, and 
yet to retain the belief of its divinity, regarding it 
as the corporeal vehicle of a glorious and benefi- 
cent spirit, the adoring wonder of this individual 
would be expected greatly to exceed that of per- 
sons who had no conception of the true grandeur 
of their idol ; but it would exceed, probably, just 
in proportion to the degree in which he actually 
considered the matter of his superior knowledge, 



I. — THE DIVINE GREATNESS. 6 

namely, the vast spaces through which the solar 
light and heat are diffused, the dimension of the 
sun itself, and the immensity of its sensible in- 
fluence ; with the correspondent immensity of the 
supposed spirit dwelling in all its sphere and in all 
its emanations. 

Another worshipper, destitute of astronomical 
knowledge, but who had been an admiring ob- 
server of the facts and appearances which lie open 
to all, might carry with him, if he were more in- 
tently meditating on these, a deeper sentiment of 
veneration to the place and hour of prayer — If in 
vivid thought he pursued the seeming career of 
this god of day through the circuit of heaven ; if 
he dwelt on the splendour of his rising, and the 
mild, ever-varied beauties of his setting ; if he pic- 
tured to himself the expansion of cheering and 
fructifying rays over whole continents, and then 
tried to form a conception of the multitude of living 
creatures awakened and gladdened daily by those 
rays, and of the still greater multitude of herbs and 
flowers opening to their visitation, and imbibing 
from them life and beauty,— this employment of 
mind, though not accompanied with so accurate a 
knowledge* would, doubtless, if more active and 
intent than that of the former, produce more 
suitable feelings. We may suppose both these to be 

b 2 



4 I. THE DIVINE GREATNESS. 

worshippers at midnight, or after the light of their 
imagined divinity is withdrawn, so that their senti- 
ments or contemplations cannot be immediately 
derived from outward perception. 

We may conceive also a third idolater, who 
at the same hour having been habituated to 
prayer, engages in it like the others, not perhaps 
without some sincerity of desire ; but, not having 
been at all accustomed to the contemplation of 
nature, or not feeling the importance of realizing 
the attributes of the object adored, he has no 
distinct thought concerning them. The only idea 
of the solar orb presented to his mind, is either the 
written name and title of the divinity, or the 
golden similitude of it which decorates his temple. 
Although he has an indistinct sense of his own 
necessities, and some apprehension, still more 
vague, of the greatness of the object worshipped, 
little else is really or clearly set before the mind 
than either a mere arbitrary name, or else the 
very weak and petty resemblance which human 
art has formed. 

It is true that even the first of those supposed 
worshippers does not adore the sun as he is, be- 
cause the bulk of that heavenly body, and its 
distance, small as they are in comparison with the 
extent of creation, are far too great for the human 



I. THE DIVINE GREATNESS. 5 

mind distinctly to apprehend ; they are objects of 
calculation, but not properly objects of concep- 
tion ; — and the second, however actively and 
poetically his thoughts may expatiate, cannot 
conceive at once any assignable portion of the sun's 
unnumbered influences on the individuals of the 
animal and vegetable world. But still the pre- 
paration for worship in the minds of both these 
persons will be acknowledged to be incomparably 
better than in that of the third. This last can 
hardly be said to believe that the sun exists. He 
believes in the existence of something so called ; 
but not investing this object by steadfast contem- 
plation with any of its attributes, the belief seems 
rather to be in a sign than in that which is sig- 
nified. 

Has not my worship of the infinitely glorious 
Creator, sometimes, for want of preparatory 
thoughts of his majesty, partaken of this cha- 
racter ? — 

Bethink thee, slumberer, whom thou would'st adore ! 

Not that illustrious idol ; but the Power 

Who lighted up its lustre ; in whose grasp 

The fancied God, by sages idoliz'd 

That knew not half its grandeur, the vast orb 

"Whose bright diameter a hundred earths 

Would scantly measure, is but as a lamp ; 

One midst the countless lamps his hand upholds 



I. THE DIVINE GREATNESS. 

And feeds with brightness.— From this solar lamp 

"Whose shining mass a million fold exceeds 

Our " atom world," -yet by remoteness shrinks 

To a mere disk, He bids the radiance fall 

On every rolling mountain of the floods, 

On every trembling drop that gems the plains ; 

Tinge with its rosy touch the giant peaks 

Of the firm Andes, and the bending cup 

Of the minutest flower ; exhale at morn 

The dews that fertilize a hemisphere, 

And dry some swift ephemeron's folded wing ; 

Blaze in its torrid strength o'er sandy zones, 

Yet cheer the living microscopic mote 

Which flutters in its glow.— Thou worship'st Him 

Who fix'd this gorgeous lamp, but who can quench 

And spare its splendour ; can reveal his works 

And bless them, were that orb extinct, and heaven 

Grown starless at his word : who when he made 

Thee, conscious spirit, of the Eternal Mind 

Reflective, wrought a work more marvellous. 

More sumptuous, than a galaxy of suns ! 

He is the Sun of spirits, and his beams 

Of all-pervading, all-awakening thought, 

Irradiate every angel's intellect, 

Yet touch with gentlest light an infant soul I 



II. 



ON THE OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY; 

It is an astonishing thought, yet strictly deduci- 
ble from the being of God, that He who made and 
sustains the universe, has an universal and unceas- 
ing agency ; therefore an universal and unceasing 
presence with all that He hath made. To imagine 
a point of space, or instant of time from which the 
agency of God is excluded, would be to imagine 
something independent of Him ; it would be to 
think of Him as finite, to limit his empire, and, by 
denying his perfection, virtually to deny his exist- 
ence. He who efficiently acts every where, is every 
where. The Deity acts indeed by innumerable in- 
struments, or causes them to act mediately, and 
often reciprocally, on each other ; but each one of 



8 II. — OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY. 

these instruments, whether spiritual or material, 
must be held in existence by his efficient and im- 
mediate agency, which implies his perpetual pre- 
sence. Angels may fulfil " his commandment" in 
the remotest regions of the creation; but who "hold- 
eth their soul in life ?"* None assuredly but a pre- 
sent God. The sacred Scriptures fully announce 
this truth, and the apostle expressed it in terms the 
most accurate as well as sublime, when hd declared 
to the Athenian idolaters, " In him we live, and 
move, and are? It is no slight presumption of the 
divinity of the Hebrews' religion, that this people, 
amidst the gross and contracted notions of the sur- 
rounding heathen, and with no sound human phi- 
losophy to enlarge their own, entertained the idea 
of an all-comprehending Godhead. Not that this 
idea excluded that of a local manifestation of the 
Deity, a place and an appearance in which he pe- 
culiarly shews forth his glory ; without the idea of 
such a manifestation, we could scarcely conceive the 
personality, and still less the promised vision, of 
the Divine Being. The Scriptures every where 
speak of a heavenly throne, a place where the glo- 
rious and beatific presence of Deity is peculiarly 
displayed ; the centre, if we may speak so, of that 

* Psalm lxvi. 9. 






IT. —OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY. 9 

presence which is universal and boundless. To 
this celestial throne, prayer is often figuratively 
considered as being addressed, and there the Deity 
is in like manner represented as acting. Thus 
Isaiah entreats ; " Look down from heaven, and 
behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of 
thy glory ;" and the Old Testament abounds with 
similiar language : it is often used also by our Sa- 
viour himself, who speaks in many of his discourses, 
of God as " our Father which is in heaven," and 
dictates an invocation in the same form. But such 
language could never be designed to weaken our 
conviction or remembrance that the intimate pre- 
sence of Deity is as real, as necessary, as perpetual, 
in every part of the universe, as it is on that throne 
before which archangels bow. Those sacred writers 
who used phrases the most distinctly indicating a 
local residence of the divine glory, were not the less 
strongly imbued with a solemn persuasion of this 
divine omnipresence. The same David who writes, 
— " The Lord is in his holy temple ; the Lord's 
throne is in heaven,'" — inquires in one of his noblest 
odes, " Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or 
whither shall I flee from thy presence ?" and de- 
scribes with poetic sublimity the attribute which is 
u too wonderful" for him. Solomon, who repeat- 
edly introduces this form of supplication, — "Hear 

b 3 



10 II. OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY. 

thou in heaven thy dwelling place,"* acknowledges 
at the commencement of his petitions, " Behold the 
heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain 
thee." That Divine Teacher, who so often reminds 
us of the mercies of our u Father which is in hea- 
ven," enjoins us to pray in the solitude of the closet 
to our 4 c Father who seeth in secret." No divine 
attribute is more readily or more necessarily admit- 
ted by us, whether we consult reason or scripture, 
than this of omnipresence ; — but is it at the same 
time realized (we will not say in a degree at all 
proportioned to its importance, but) even in an 
equal degree with the other perfections which we 
ascribe to the Deity ? From the slight impression 
which it frequently makes, one would infer that it 
cannot be so. For what thought can be calculated 
to strike the mind more deeply and powerfully, 
than that of an ever-present God ? — And without 
a lively conviction of this truth, how greatly the 
force of the whole revelation concerning the divine 
character is neutralized ! We may acknowledge the 
abstract justice, purity, and compassion of Jehovah, 
but unless we really apprehend his omnipresence, 
there can be no imperative check to sin, nor any 
substantial confidence in devotion. If in the hour 

* 1 Kings, viii. passim. 



II, OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY. 1 1 

of sinful indulgence, or cold meditation, or listless 
worship, we could awake from our spiritual slum- 
ber, as Jacob awoke from his bodily sleep at Bethel, 
into the strong sense of this momentous fact, — 
should we not exclaim with as much awe as he did, 
" Surely Jehovah is in this place, and I 'knew it 
not ! — This is none other than the house of God, 
and this is the gate of heaven !" 

As yet, indeed, we are not summoned into the 
central apartment of his palace, who is "the blessed 
and only Potentate ;" — we are not yet in the Holy 
of holies, the inner court of the temple of God 
above ; — but his palace, his temple, is the universe ; 
the worlds are our " Father's house." We are in 
the ante-room, in the outer courts, already. " The 
King immortal, invisible," " is not far from any 
one of us," veiled by the symbols of his own " eter- 
nal power and godhead." We can be in no place, 
while conscious of the existence of our body and 
mind, without ascertaining the uninterrupted con- 
tinuance of the agency and presence of God ; for 
this body, and this mind, although the whole fabric 
of nature were concealed from us, would demon- 
strate a supporting Deity. We walk then, as it 
were, in a secret chamber, whether in the field at 
eventide, or in the closet, or in the house of prayer ; 
He who " filleth heaven and earth," Jehovah, the 



12 II. — OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY. 

infinite Spirit, is with us, though unseen. — And it 
is a chamber of audience. " The God of the spirits 
of all flesh'*' is actually and graciously " nigh unto 
all that call upon Him." Indeed these are but 
weak figures to describe the nearness of Him in 
whom " we have our being" who " is," as a Divine 
has expressed it, " the soul of our soul." " We 
seem as if alone" (he adds) " in that interior sanc- 
tuary, but God is there more intimately than we." 
This truth obviously affords a most complete 
encouragement (the moral attributes of God being 
first acknowledged) to every kind of worship, and 
quite as much to silent mental prayer as to any 
other. Nothing but the belief of God's real omni- 
presence can make it any way rational to conclude, 
that the loudest prayers or adorations, whether of 
individuals or of multitudes, in different places, are 
heard and understood by Him ; and the very same 
belief is alone necessary, in order to be assured, not 
only that He observes the whispered petition, the 
gesture or the sigh which expresses thought and 
desire, but even the thought or desire itself which 
no sign of any kind accompanies. That would be 
a very low and unworthy conception of the divine 
nature, (beseeming those devotees of Baal whom 
the prophet so bitterly reproved,) by which the 
Deity should be imagined to understand the 



II.— OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY. 13 

thoughts and desires of his creatures only through 
the medium of signs, whether verbal or otherwise, 
We are apt to attribute to the signs of thought an 
importance which is not at all essential to them, 
but which arises, great as it is to us, merely out of 
our own imperfection. Thought, when unrecorded, 
still more when unuttered, is, to us, an evanescent 
thing ; which, from its fugitive, unfixed character, 
seems hardly to have a real subsistence. And 
hence proceeds much illusion, both with regard to 
the extent of our moral responsibility, and the 
nature of prayer. It is not only our imperfection 
which needs these signs, but they are likewise, 
although to us most precious, exceedingly imper- * 
feet in themselves. Language dies in the very 
utterance. Inscriptions even on brass and marble 
perish. Writings and books, the most valuable 
repositories of thought, are more perishing still, 
and can only be perpetuated by renewal. Thus 
none of those symbols of thought, on which all 
our present knowledge, even the knowledge of a 
Saviour and of eternal life, depends, (and which 
therefore may be regarded as the best gifts of 
God's providence,) are permanent or indelible. 
They ^ on the contrary, are the truly evanescent 
things. When "the earth and the works that are 
therein shall be burnt up," those works in which 



14 II. — OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY. 

the thoughts of human genius and erudition have 
been for ages treasured, and as it were, embalmed, 
will become fuel for that awful pile, as many like 
them have already perished in lesser conflagra- 
tions, and by other modes of destruction. We 
know not that even the records of revelation will 
be excepted from this doom. But when all mortal 
signs both of error and of truth are effaced, truth 
will remain perfect and unchanged in the Divine 
Mind, where also every thought of every thinking 
being must eternally dwell, or at least can be obli- 
terated by no cause except the divine volition. It 
would be a denial of God's omniscience, a suppo- 
sition of imperfection in the Deity, not to believe 
this. 

We are not, however, hence to infer that pro- 
longed silent or mental prayer is usually desirable 
for us, even in secret. On account of our weak 
and limited nature, it is probably, for the most 
part, not so. The utterance of words contributes 
to fix and form our thoughts, to give them order 
and connexion, and even to affect our hearts more 
deeply ; we recognize more fully by this means 
the reality and continuity of prayer, and are more 
guarded against its distractions and inconstancies. 
Yet the firm persuasion that mental prayer is effec- 
tive, and that we may really address an ever-present 



II.— OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY. 15 

God, like that devout petitioner who " spake in 
her heart/' (even although our " lips" should not 
u move," as did hers,) is of great value, as en- 
couraging a habit which can make every place and 
scene an oratory ; a habit also which will best pre- 
pare us for those last moments or hours of earthly 
devotion, — we trust by far the most fervent and 
most blest, — when the tongue, the lip, the hand, 
the eye, shall successively fail in their weak and 
transient offices, but when the spirit shall more 
closely commune with Him, as our Father, " who 
hath come unto us, and made his abode with us." — 
Meanwhile, it is not enough that God be with us ; in 
order to the happiness and life of our souls, we must 
seek to be more and more in purpose and in spirit 
with Him. The divine presence surrounds and 
pervades an image, a plant, an irrational animal, a 
sensual human being, who, though endowed with 
reason, and capable of immortal blessedness in the 
knowledge and love of his Creator, is yet living 
" without God in the world." This is enough for 
the inanimate and the irrational, for it is all of 
which, as far as we can tell, their nature admits ; 
but surely it is not enough for the human nature, 
which is conscious to itself, when enlightened and 
awake, as soon it must be, of desires and capaci- 
ties infinitely higher. Let us be grateful for the 



16 II.— OMNIPRESENCE OF DEITY. 

sustaining presence of God ; but if we would not 
forfeit the noblest privilege of our being, and incur 
a loss which is awfully irreparable, we must seek 
that gracious presence, that happy intimacy and 
communion with our Maker and Redeemer, which 
is the true felicity of a spirit. We must pray that 
the feelings and faculties of our souls may be in- 
creasingly " alive unto God through Jesus Christ ;" 
that we may exercise, in a growing measure, the 
confidence and love which his presence and his 
perfections excite in the glorified ; that we may be 
able to say not merely " in Him we live," — but 
for Him and unto Him we live ; not merely " in 
Him we move," whether physically or intellec- 
tually, — but towards Him is the supreme, the 
willing movement of our affections and desires ; 
not only " in Him we have our being" but in 
Him our hope, in Him our happiness ; so that we 
can no otherwise think of a present or a future 
well-being, than in the enjoyment of filial union 
with our Father and our God. 









IIL 



ON THE EFFICACY OF PKAYEK. 

Only so far as the unbelief of my heart ques- 
tions the truth or divine authority of that volume 
which every where encourages and inculcates the 
duty, can I consistently question the power and 
efficacy of prayer to God. Unless the recorded 
success of those devout persons, whose fervent and 
prevailing prayers the scripture mentions, be fabu- 
lous or imaginary ; unless the prophets have falsely 
pronounced the following as messages of the Most 
High, — " I will yet for this be inquired of by the 
house of Israel, to do it for them ;"* " While they 
are yet speaking, I w r ill hear;"t "Whosoever 

* Ezekiel, xxxvi. 37. t Isaiah, Ixv. 24. 



18 III. EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 

shall call on the name of the Lord shall be deli- 
vered ;"* " He will be very gracious unto thee 
at the voice of thy cry ; when he shall hear it, he 
will answer thee :"t —then the true worshippers of 
the true God have always had reason to confide in 
the success of their supplications. And since the 
coming of our Saviour, the grounds of this confi- 
dence have been rendered still more explicit and 
satisfactory ; for, unless Christ himself was in 
error, or designed to mislead others, when he en- 
joined so urgently and repeatedly the duty of con- 
stant, persevering, and importunate prayer, when 
he recommended it by his own example, when he 
uttered the declaration of its universal success, 
" Every one that asketh, receiveth ;" then we have 
the strongest assurances that God is verily " plen- 
teous in mercy to all them that call upon him." 
This belief is inseparable from the simple belief of 
revelation. Except, therefore, I am unhappily 
and presumptuously inclined to renounce or to 
explain away the revealed truth of God, and with 
it the substantial and enduring hope of man, on 
account of certain metaphysical difficulties which 
may be raised on this subject, I must endeavour to 
engage in the duty of prayer with a firm convic- 

* Joel, ii. 32. + Isaiah, xxx. 19. 



III. EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 19 

tion that it shall never be in vain. But indeed 
those difficulties, arising from our unavoidable be- 
lief of the " determinate counsel and fore -know- 
ledge of God," have in themselves no weight. My 
doubting, or slothful, or desponding temper of 
mind may suggest, — How can I hope to move or 
influence an unchangeable Being ? " The counsel 
of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his 
heart to all generations." As reasonably might it 
be asked, — How can I hope, by taking food, to 
renew my strength, or prolong my life ; or, by 
applying to the physician, to obtain the removal of 
disease? God hath foreseen and appointed the 
term of my life, and the measure of my health and 
strength. 

In these cases the absurdity of the objection is 
at once apparent. The means by which health is 
to be restored, strength sustained, and life pre- 
served, are as much objects of the divine fore- 
knowledge and counsel as the ends connected with 
them. It hath pleased the Divine Providence to 
connect them ; and the one will not be without the 
other. So it hath pleased God, as we learn dis- 
tinctly from his revealed declarations, to connect 
the reception of spiritual blessings with prayer; 
the real welfare and prosperity of man with sup- 
plication to the Author of every good and perfect 



20 III. — EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 

gift. They are as strictly united as knowledge is 
with study, or the continuance of life with the use 
of food. It is no more philosophical to doubt the 
efficacy and the consequence of the one means than 
of the other. 

But am I then to expect a special answer to 
every petition ? Are my requests in prayer to be 
fulfilled without delay or disappointment ? This 
depends on the character and terms of the requests 
themselves, and the conditions or reservations 
under which they are made. It would be not only 
unchristian, but irrational, for so short-sighted a 
creature as I am, to pray, absolutely, for any tem- 
poral possession or event, or even for the immedi- 
ate communication of some spiritual benefits. If 
any thing be more certain than another, it is that I 
cannot foresee the effect of outward things upon 
my real good ; nor do I even know what present 
state of mind and feeling will best promote my 
ultimate happiness. All a Christian's prayers, 
therefore, except for things which are universally 
and immutably good, ought to be quite condi- 
tional. They should be so with respect to the best 
of temporal blessings, such as the life of those 
most dear to me, and my own health. And they 
should be so even with regard to present spiritual 
enjoyments, such as a sensible experience of the 



III. — EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 21 

Divine favour, or a full assurance and prelibation 
of future bliss. In all petitions for these, there 
must be a submissive reference of our most earnest 
desires to the wisdom and mercy of Him who 
knoweth all things, that they may be graciously 
imparted, or graciously denied. And if this be not 
distinct enough, either in our words or in our 
thoughts, we must conclude, when our desires re- 
main unfulfilled, that our heavenly Father kindly 
interpreted those prayers as conditional, which in 
temper and language were too absolute. We must 
believe him to say, in the refusal or postponement 
of our request, — My son, if thou hadst meditated 
more on my perfections and thy own condition, 
thou wouldst have added, like him who suffered 
for thee, " Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou 
wilt ;" and thus, in love to thee, for the sake of that 
illustrious Sufferer, I have treated thy prayer. 

Our heavenly Father has promised to " give good 
things to them that ask him ;"* i. e. to give at all 
times those things which are always good for man, 
in measures proportioned to the earnestness and 
frequency of the request ; and to give those things, 
which are only good at certain periods, and for 
certain states of character, only when they thus 

* Matthew, vii. 1 1 . 



22 III. EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 

become " good things." If this could be otherwise, 
we must suppose the All- wise and All-gracious God 
to give, not " good things" to them that ask him, 
but things which they erroneously suppose to be 
good for them. This would be fearfully contrary 
to the Divine attributes and to our welfare. It i s 
evident, that the spirit of our prayers, and our 
hopes as to their efficacy, should be regulated by 
these considerations. 

But there are petitions which may be alivays 
unconditionally presented ; such as for the in- 
fluence of the Holy Spirit in general, for victory 
over sin, and growth in holiness; more particu- 
larly for strength in the fulfilment of known duty, 
for direction in doubt and difficulty where our 
duty is concerned, for help to exercise each Chris- 
tian temper and grace, for deliverance from every 
evil disposition, for increasing conformity to Christ, 
and faith and love towards him. Even to these 
petitions I am not to expect sudden, complete, or 
sensible answers: this would be putting an end 
to my state of trial, and would be manifestly at 
variance with the order of God's moral govern- 
ment. The efficacy of these prayers is sufficiently 
evinced, if there be, on the whole, a progress in 
the attainments desired ; and it is not disproved 
by occasional declension, whether seeming or real, 



HI. EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 23 

any more than the efficacy of food is disproved by 
occasional debility or disease. Probably I ought 
to ascribe, much more fully and strictly than I 
do, whatever right inclinations, or purposes, or 
habits I am conscious of, to the direct efficacy of 
my daily petitions for spiritual good. They 
should be considered not only in a general man- 
ner as gifts of the divine grace, but as particular 
answers to my entreaties for that grace ; supplies 
immediately connected with my renewed requests. 
It is true, I have even now cause to be pro- 
foundly humbled at the experience of evil in my 
heart and life ; but, were it supposable, that, with- 
out apostacy, and through perversion of the under- 
standing rather than of the will or affections, I 
might be induced henceforth to restrain or renounce 
all prayer, there is every reason to conclude that 
my spiritual state would thus be awfully deterio- 
rated; that good wishes and designs would be 
speedily weakened and suppressed ; that evil pas- 
sions would gain strength ; that the doubts which 
even now assault me would triumph, and exclude 
comfort from the soul ; that my confidence in God 
would utterly fail ; that I might be betrayed into 
some dreadful and irrecoverable fall, prompted by 
a criminal inclination or a despairing mind. We 
read of persons who " draw back unto perdition," 



24 III. EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 

— " abominable and disobedient, and to every good 
work reprobate," — who " are altogether become 
filthy," — who " search out iniquities," and " en- 
courage themselves in evil," — who say, " in their 
heart, there is no God." We see these scriptural 
statements verified in the dreadful example of some 
around us, in every class of society. These are men 
who never have truly prayed, or who have re- 
nounced prayer. And to what but prayer as a 
mean, an essential and efficacious mean, because 
so appointed by the Father of mercies, shall I 
mainly attribute my preservation from this wretched 
state ? It ought to be ascribed with the deepest 
gratitude to the mercy of Him who " heareth us 
always," that I, who am so fallible, so weak, so 
sinful, whose heart is " deceitful above all things, 
and grievously infirm,"* have still been enabled to 
" continue" in prayer ; and have received a portion 
of those succours which prayer procures, far greater 
than from the unbelief and languor of my ap- 
proaches to God might have been expected. All 
these considerations should most powerfully operate 

* The deplorable fact of its " wickedness," as stated in our 
common version of Jeremiah xvii. 9, is one to which the most 
conscientious self-observers have set their seal ; but the version 
itself does not appear critically faithful. See Parkhurst and 
Simon on the word \mn. 



lir. EFFICACY OF PRAYER. 25 

to lead me constantly, with devoted praise and 
believing supplication, to his throne of grace, that 
I may still " obtain mercy, and find grace to help 
in time of need.'" 



IV. 



ON APATHY AND DEADNESS RESPECTING 
REVEALED TRUTH. 

I experience at present an utter averseness 
and reluctancy to meditation and prayer. But is 
this a reason why I should refrain from these 
duties, or defer them ? Surely not ; for my state 
of feeling implies a blindness with regard to the 
highest truths, and interests, and expectations, 
which it is most essential to my spiritual safety and 
happiness should be removed ; and by what means 
can I promote its removal, except by sedulously 
exercising my thoughts in order to the excitement 
of my affections, and to the effectual solicitation of 
divine aid? " Many are hindered, (says a foreign 
theologian, quoted by Baxter,) because they re- 
fuse to give themselves to prayer or meditation, 



IV. APATHY, &C. 27 

except they feel themselves brought to it by de- 
votion ; and except it be when these duties delight 
them, and go to their hearts ; otherwise all seems 
to them unprofitable. But this kind of men are 
like him, that being vexed with cold, will not go 
to the fire except he were first warm ; or like one 
that is ready to perish with famine, and will not 
ask meat, except he were first satisfied. For why 
doth a man give himself to prayer or meditation, 
but that he might be warmed with the fire of 
divine love ? or, that he may be filled with the 
gifts and grace of God ? These men are mistaken, 
in thinking the time lost in prayer or meditation, 
if they be not presently watered with a shower of 
devotion ; for I answer them, that if they strive as 
much as in them lieth for this, and do their duty, 
and are in war, and in continual fight against their 
own thoughts, with displeasure because they de- 
part not, nor suffer them to be quiet, such men for 
this time are more accepted, than if the heat and 
devotion had come to them suddenly, without any 
such conflict."* 

I perceive the justness of these arguments ; and 
have the more need to be practically influenced by 
them, inasmuch as I am not merely like one so 

* Gerson. 

c 2 



28 IV. APATHY RESPECTING 

situated that food will not be brought him if he be 
too slothful to seek it, but like one whose appetite 
is impaired ; not merely like one " vexed with 
cold," but like one beginning to be motionless 
with cold, in whom sensation is partly blunted. — 
Rouse thyself, oh my soul, from this spiritual 
lethargy ! Remember that thy weak indifference 
cannot produce even the minutest change or inter- 
mission in the sleepless course of things. Still, 
amidst seeming rest and inertness, the solid earth 
is rolling on it's axis, and rushing through space. — 
Every planet flies with undecliningvelocity through 
its vast orbit. — The pulses of animal life vibrate in 
thy frame, and its vital fluid incessantly circulates, 
while thy spiritual life is stagnating. — At every 
moment, unnumbered beings make their entrance 
into time, and a multitude take their flight into 
eternity.— The infinite energy of the Eternal Mind 
is awake to all the events of his universe, and go- 
verning them all. — The praises and melodies of 
heaven are unsuspended. — The laments of the 
miserable are wakeful and unassuaged. — The ever- 
prevailing Mediator continually intercedes. — The 
day of thy summons into an unknown world, 
swiftly approaches by the unceasing lapse of time ; 
and every little section of the dial or the watch, 
which the shadow or the index traverses, is a por- 



J REVEALED TRUTH. 29 

tion of thy unintermitted (never to be intermitted) 
progress towards the home of spirits. — " Behold, 
the Judge standeth before the door." — It will be 
but a transient succession, a swift continuation of 
hours and minutes, and thou shalt have to look back 
upon the consummation of terrestrial things, upon 
the awful disclosures and decisions of the great 
retributive day, upon the moment when thy own 
character, as viewed by the Searcher of hearts, 
stood first revealed, and with it thy allotment in a 
new untried existence ! — And now, while those 
scenes are yet future, every action, every temper, 
every purpose and bias of the mind, is to be re- 
garded as a sowing for an eternal harvest. The 
influences of heaven, even of the Almighty and 
All-holy Spirit, are offered to him that implores 
them, and are able to produce in the soul, " fruit 
unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." A 
celestial and endless blessedness is set before thy 
faith, with every solemn promise and mighty work 
of Christ to guarantee its reality ; and he who 
is gone to "prepare a place''' for his followers, 
has engaged to come again and receive them to 
himself. 

And is there all this animated activity in the 
creatures and operations of God ? — All this benefi- 
cent energy in him who preserves and actuates 



30 IV.— APATHY, &C. 

them ? — All this restless rapidity in the flight of 
time, and the progress of events and dispensations 
towards their final period ? — All this growing near- 
ness, and amplitude, and splendour in the prospects 
of eternity ? Do the records of revelation mean- 
while offer to me the exhaustless fountain of spiri- 
tual good, proclaiming, " Ask, and ye shall re- 
ceive ?" — Does he that died for me utter the awak> 
ening words, " Behold, I come quickly, — hold that 
fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown ;" 
— " him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the 
temple of my God ? n And can I be languid and 
listless in the midst of these facts and these incite- 
ments ? If they fail to move and stimulate my desire 
or fear, if, through deep stupor and somnolency of 
spirit, I am not affected or awakened by such 
thoughts, then how indispensable and urgent the 
necessity of solemnly applying (in however broken 
a manner) to the Father of mercies, entreating that 
he would dissolve the spell which binds my soul ; 
lest at length " the thunder of his power*" should 
rend it, and present to my view, not the mild light 
of grace, but the " fiery stream" of judgment, where 
" the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his holy 
One for a flame !" 



V. 



ON THE IMPERFECTION OF ALL HUMAN 
THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE IN THE VIEW 
OF THE CREATOR. 



A vast mountain, a range of perpendicular cliff s, 
are objects that powerfully excite in us the idea 
of grandeur. They are among the sublimest 
objects within the near scope and measurement of 
our senses, and it seems to be chiefly from com- 
paring them with those less things to which our 
near view is usually directed, and particularly with 
the minuteness and feebleness of our own bodily 
structure, that we gain this impression of their sta- 
bility and greatness. For we know, on reflection, 
that the grandeur, even of the Himalayan moun- 
tains, is merely relative ; and that all the different 
inequalities of our earths surface are, proportion- 



32 V. — IMPERFECTION OF HUMAN 

ally to its magnitude, but as the greater and 
smaller grains of sand or dust, differing a little in 
size and aggregation, which might be strewn and 
cemented on the surface of our artificial globes. 

So there is, to us, a grandeur in human elo- 
quence. To hear or read the expression of 
thoughts, which (in our figurative way of describ- 
ing them) are eminently clear, solid, lofty, and 
comprehensive, which are well combined, and con- 
veyed to us by the most distinct and appropriate 
signs that language yields, is highly gratifying and 
elevating to the enlightened mind. And to minds 
which are at all spiritually ', as well as intellectually, 
enlightened, there is no way in which true elo- 
quence can appear more nobly exercised, than in 
prayer to God. False or affected eloquence indeed, 
is in no other use of it so deeply disgusting, 
because in this it is not only puerile but profane : 
the true eloquence of prayer is that simple great- 
ness of thought and reverential fervour of desire in 
which lowliness and sublimity meet. With this a 
devout and well ordered mind is elevated and 
charmed ; charmed perhaps too much : that is, as 
far as the charm results from an admiration of 
superior thought and expression. For we know, 
or should know, on reflection, that the loftiness 
and compass of human eloquence are as merely 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 33 

relative as the mass and height of mountains ; and 
that in the view of the infinite Mind of Him who 
" taketh up the isles as an atom,"* the differences 
between the most expansive and the narrowest, the 
most exalted and the humblest modes of human 
thought and speech, are as utterly inconsiderable. 
The disproportion between the conceptions and 
communications of Lord Bacon and those of a 
peasant, is to us immense ; but to the all-compre- 
hending intellect it is only a difference in degrees of 
littleness : it is as the difference between Caucasus 
and a hillock unto Him " who meted out heaven 
with a span." To us the thoughts of some few 
among our fellow-men, and the medium through 
which they are conveyed to us, appear splendidly 
distinguished from those of the multitude ; the 
difference is real ; and is, relatively, great : but it 
is a difference between " very little things," and 
therefore, in itself, a very little difference. 

The full and finished strain of the parent nightin- 
gale enchants us ; the chirp of her brood has no 
power to please. Both however are but the feeble 
and limited notes of birds. — The eloquence of 
Cicero and Chatham transported their hearers ; 
while a child or an uninstructed person can scarcely 

* Isaiah, xl. 15. Lowth's Translation. 

c 3 



34 V. IMPERFECTION OF HUMAN 

give distinct utterance to one interesting thought 
or emotion. Yet both classes speak only, " with 
the tongues of men ;1 and thought conceived and 
expressed by means of so earthly and frail an 
organization as ours, is probably, even in its 
strongest conception and best enunciation, exceed- 
ingly weak and circumscribed, not only in the 
view of the Deity, but of some created minds. 
Even to Newton, the difference between the ac- 
quirements of a child who knew the first rudiments 
of numbers, and of a student who could demon- 
strate the theorems of Euclid, must have appeared, 
comparatively, trifling ; because he himself is said 
to have comprehended the latter intuitively. We 
cannot, therefore, doubt that intelligences of a 
higher order must look on the highest reach of 
human science as infantine, and the ablest use of 
language as a very indirect and defective method 
of signifying thought. Even we feel its inade- 
quacy. How much more must they ! and if, 
therefore, the differences of human thought and 
speech, appear little, when absolutely considered, 
to superior finite minds, how little to Him that 
" fashioneth our hearts alike." 

These reflections may counteract the shock which 
imagination sometimes gives to faith ? when we 
witness a peculiar limitation and feebleness of men- 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 35 

tal powers ; especially when this intellectual fee- 
bleness augments in correspondence to the decay 
of bodily health and life, so that all sensible indi- 
cations oppose the idea of capacity for a separate 
spiritual being, and of the near approach to such a 
state. 

Paley, when combating that scepticism as to a 
future life which grounds itself on the general con- 
tractedness of the human faculties, very pertinently 
asks, " whether any one who saw a child two 
hours after its birth, could suppose that it would 
ever come to understand Jluwions" But with re- 
gard also to what is sometimes termed second child- 
hood, or to comparative childhood of the mind 
through life ; the thought which has now been 
dwelt on, (that is, the small absolute distance be- 
tween the lowest and highest points of our intel- 
lectual scale,) tends to correct false and painful 
impressions. 

" This is the bud of being," says Dr. Young. 
— If a very young florist were taken, at early 
spring, into a nursery of rose-plants, and saw but 
a few, of which the large buds began to shew 
their crimson, seeming ready, though but just un- 
folding, to burst into bloom on the next genial 
day, while many of equal age scarcely gave signs 
of vegetation, and many appeared checked and 



36 V. — IMPERFECTION OF HUMAN 

drooping from partial frost, withering rather than 
growing, she might think with sorrow that all 
must die, except the few which were budding so 
auspiciously; but the cultivator, with smiles at 
this fear, might say, — My little friend, to you the 
difference is great between an opening and a quite 
unopened bud, or one that has been chilled by 
these easterly gales. But despair not of my 
charge. I shall soon transplant them to a better 
soil and aspect. In summer they all will bloom ; 
and some of the humblest seedlings here, or of 
those which seem to you all but lifeless, may then 
bear the sweetest and noblest flowers. 

This illustration, weak as . it is, applies to the 
different degrees of development of the human 
faculties in our present condition. 

But to return to the consideration of eloquence, 
(one chief exercise and expression of those facul- 
ties,) its great inadequacy may furnish us with 
one reason for that absence of the " excellency of 
speech," which some have treated as an objection 
to the divine origin of scripture. Had Titian or 
Guido become a christian missionary, and been 
stationed among savages who were used to express 
facts or thoughts by rudely painted hieroglyphics, 
it is highly probable that he would sometimes 
have used the aid of his pencil in addressing them ; 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 37 

but it is improbable that he would have used 
any of their colours, or selected those which it was 
their taste or fashion to prefer, or adopted their 
rules for mingling and applying these ; perceiving 
that neither their best materials, nor their rules of 
art, would be at all adequate to his subject. It 
would be much more likely, that, with some sim- 
ple touches from a fragment of chalk, or sketches 
with a half-burnt brand, he should prove to them 
that his genius and his mission were from another 
world of painters. 

But the thoughts first pursued are particularly 
applicable to the subject of prayer ; — they forbid 
me to indulge contempt or distaste for the prayers 
of the most limited or untaught, provided they 
express, even in the lowliest channel of thought 
and utterance, an unfeigned piety. " The Lord 
looketh on the heart? Incense may be presented 
in a cruse of the coarsest pottery, or in a classic 
vase of the most ornamented porcelain ; it is of the 
same quality and value in each : the vessels, in- 
deed, differ ; yet each is but an earthen vessel ; 
and though, in many respects, they are contrasted, 
both, in reality, abound in flaws, are soon defaced, 
and easily broken. 

It does not at all follow, that attention to man- 
ner and language, in social prayer, is improper 



38 V. — IMPERFECTION OF HUMAN 

or superfluous. And even in secret devotion, the 
connected clearness and unaffected energy of 
speech may be, as it respects many minds, a cri- 
terion of the real fixedness of thought and concen- 
tration of desire on spiritual things. So far as it 
is an effect and proof of these dispositions, such 
eloquence, if he be ever conscious of it in the 
closet, must and should afford satisfaction to the 
Christian. But yet, the reflections which have 
been now dwelt upon, should equally guard him 
against vain elation in that consciousness, and 
despondency at the want of it. At one time, 
perhaps, he is happily borne on in a strain of 
devotion which is fluent and forcible. Thoughts 
and words arise spontaneously, and connect them- 
selves without effort. He " pours out his heart" 
with a copious and glowing freedom before his 
Father, who seeth in secret. And can the petty 
" pride and naughtiness of his heart" find fuel for 
self-idolatry even there ? 

The most usual, and strongest rebuke of such a 
feeling is, " What hast thou that thou hast not re- 
ceived ?" As well might the dumb, to whom our 
Saviour restored the power of speech, have prided 
themselves on the eloquence of their thanksgivings. 

But a further rebuke may be drawn from the 
present topic. What is the amount of difference, 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 39 

in the ear of Him who heareth prayer, or even of 
his angels, between those thy best addresses, and 
the meanest or most embarrassed words of genuine 
worship which arise from the hut, the work-loft, or 
the field? 

Perhaps, however, there may be more frequent 
occasion to apply this thought to the relief of dis- 
couragement. The worshipper's mind is confused ; 
untuned by anxiety, haunted by some prevailing 
idea. Unrestrained by the presence of fellow- 
creatures, (which, being ascertained by the senses, 
could not be forgotten,) and but faintly realizing 
the presence of the Invisible Spirit, he utters in- 
coherent petitions and praises, repeats the same 
thoughts and words, or uses such as are inappro- 
priate : instead of distinctly soliciting particular 
blessings, deprecating special evils and dangers, 
acknowledging individual mercies, — his petitions 
are a sort of helpless summary of his wants ; his 
confessions, a disorderly acknowledgment of sin 
and weakness ; his thanks, a dim retrospect of half- 
remembered benefits. The review of such a kind 
of secret prayer, or the consciousness of its charac- 
ter while uttering it, mortifies and dejects the mind. 
Indeed, as far as it has arisen from a real decay of 
pious affections, or from distractions which it were 
a duty to shun, there is reason both to feel com- 



40 V. — IMPERFECTION OF HUMAN 

punetion, and to seek diligently the remedies of 
those spiritual ills ; but, as far as it is independent 
of such causes, (and none will doubt that it may 
sometimes be so,) the pain with which it is con- 
templated should, by various considerations, be 
relieved. He " that inhabiteth eternity," has not 
said, " to this man will I look," and " with him 
will I dwell," who worships me with enlarged and 
varied thoughts,, with lofty and flowing, and well- 
arranged words ; — but, with " him that is humble 
and of a contrite spirit, and that revereth my 
word."* The publican's prayer, which our Sa- 
viour commends, is, though truly eloquent in its 
kind, such a brief and general supplication, as 
might be uttered and reiterated by the most en- 
feebled and discomposed spirit. And perhaps the 
eyes which that suppliant would "not so much as 
lift unto heaven," and the hand which " smote upon 
his breast," were signs of confession and entreaty, 
more expressive than his vocal signs, in the " pre- 
sence of the angels of God." u We know not," 
says St. Paul, u what we should pray for as we 
ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for 
us with unuttered groanings."*)- It is plain, there- 

* Isaiah, lxvi. 2. Lowth. 
f See Schleusner on the word »XaX»jT0f. 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 41 

fore, that the aid of the Spirit does not necessarily, 
or always, consist in imparting or enhancing the 
eloquence of words. 

These are the weightiest considerations ; but 
the thought, which it has here been attempted to 
illustrate, may be auxiliary to them. For we may 
justly say, — This feeling of the poverty and 
brokenness of my prayers , as compared with my 
own at some other times, or with the eloquent de- 
votions of others, is a highly exaggerated estimate 
of difference between degrees of weakness, arising 
from the very minuteness of my whole range. To 
an insect, it may be much, whether the sun-beam 
paint his wings, and cheer him into a flight of some 
hand-breadths from the soil, or whether an autumn 
drop have so stained and chilled them, that he can 
but flutter from blade to blade ; but in the eye of 
the eagle, or even of the little songstress who 
aspires into the morning cloud, what is this differ- 
ence, or how much is it " to be accounted of?" 

Perhaps the sublimest strain of worship that 
ever a mere mortal uttered, has been, in the esti- 
mation of higher intelligences, no more superior to 
these broken prayers, (supposing there be an equal 
measure of true piety in each,) than the more 
graceful or significant gestures of one speechless 
petitioner would appear to me to excel those of 



42 V. — IMPERFECTION OF HUMAN THOUGHT. 



another. The mode of communicating ideas is so 
extremely defective, that its differences claim little 
or no regard. Let me ever bear in mind that em- 
phatic and gracious admonition, " My son, give 
me thine heart" Our heavenly Father knows that 
his children have nothing else to give ; and even 
this they give that it may be u formed anew/' 
When its sacred renovation is complete, none can 
doubt that the intellectual power, the affluence of 
feeling, and the means of expression, will be per- 
fected beyond all that hope can now anticipate, or 
imagination reach. 






VI 



ON THE GREATNESS OF THE BLESSINGS WHICH 
WE SEEK IN PRAYER. 

Who has ever rightly conceived, when address- 
ing himself to the throne of the heavenly grace to 
implore benefits for his immortal spirit, the true 
greatness and worth of the favours that he is 
about to ask ? Nothing but the revelations of a 
world " not seen as yet," can give a due impres- 
sion of their nature : and immortality itself cannot 
appreciate their amount, because it will be ever- 
lastingly to come : yet, doubtless, there might be 
attained a much stronger apprehension of the value 
of spiritual good than that in which I have com- 
monly rested. It will be attained at that period, 
(so inevitably sure, although so vaguely and 



44 VI. — GREATNESS OF THE 

dimly anticipated,) when I shall be, like " our 
fathers," a prisoner on the last " bed of languish- 
ing," where sensitive and earthly good must be 
viewed in its real insignificance and impotency ; 
and I must feel with an entire irrefutable con- 
sciousness, " All this availeth me nothing /" 

What an incalculable importance and excellency 
will the possessions and prospects of the soul then 
assume in its own estimation ! What words or 
thoughts shall then suffice to compute the pre- 
ciousness of u eternal redemption," or of that 
i6 partaking of the divine nature," which is the 
pledge of a divine and imperishable bliss ! 

We can imagine a subject of the great northern 
monarchy, sentenced, for some state offence, to ba- 
nishment for life into Siberian deserts, prostrating 
himself before his prince with intense anxiety for 
pardon, overwhelmed with the bitter thought of 
perpetual separation from all that is dear, and the 
shame, and hardship, and desolation of that lin- 
gering, irreversible penalty. And should my heart 
be cold, when I fall before the true and universal 
Monarch, as an offender against the state and Ma- 
jesty of heaven ; when the favour which I have to 
entreat is that of a pardon from the righteous and 
uncontrollable Ruler of all worlds ? What would 
be the intenseness of my solicitude to obtain this 



BLESSINGS SOUGHT IN PRAYER. 45 

act of grace, and the satisfying assurance of its 
reality, if I could contemplate the unmixed gloom, 
the hopeless rigour, and unutterable ignominy, of 
a spirit 1 s banishment from the Father of mercies, 
and from the rejoicing millions that triumph in his 
love ! 

There is, indeed, this most happy difference, 
that, while success in entreating pardon from an 
earthly ruler, must be always, in a high degree, 
doubtful, — pardon from " the King Eternal and 
Invisible," if perse veringly pleaded for with a truly 
penitent heart, through the atoning mediation of 
his beloved Son, is declared to be infallibly sure; 
— " He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, 
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And 
this certainty, it may seem, must remove the deep 
and painful anxiety with which the suit would 
else be accompanied. So, indeed, in the mind of 
the true penitent, it ovght to operate : his solici- 
tude should not long be of a nature inconsistent 
with substantial peace ; yet it is to be remembered, 
that he has, in the present life, no external con- 
veyance of this divine pardon, and no internal 
sign or ratification of it which will prospectively 
suffice ; the well-founded assurance of its being 
really granted, can only be proportioned to the 
continued sincerity and faith with which we seek 



46 VI. — GREATNESS OF THE 

it, and to the unaffected contrition and unreserved 
allegiance of soul, of which we are lastingly 
conscious. That precious seal of personal re- 
demption, which the Holy Spirit is ready to im- 
press, day by day, continually, can find no place 
in u the tablets of the heart," except that heart 
be daily softened and made receptive of the 
blessing by penitential prayer. Supplication for 
pardon cannot, by the enlightened and truly 
humble Christian, be felt or judged, at any period 
of his earthly course, to have become superfluous, 
or to be a mere formality. Although he has at- 
tained a peaceful hope of justification from that 
paternal Sovereign, before whom he long has 
bowed with unfeigned penitence and true conver- 
sion of soul, still, in order to maintain this state 
and sense of acceptance, he has ever to sue for 
the same inestimable gift of remission. What 
humble self-examining mind will doubt that this 
is fit and needful, both in the review of sins long 
past, and of recent offences ?* " We must renew 
our requests for pardon every day," says a most 
pious writer ; " it is more necessary than to pray 
for our daily bread :" and again, " Who can un- 
derstand his errors ? Who can enumerate the 

* James, iii. 2.— 1 John, i. 8, 



BLESSINGS SOUGHT IN PRAYER. 47 

many defections from that strait rule of our duty ? 
It would tire the hand of an angel to write down 
the pardons that God bestows upon one penitent 
believer."* 

Nor is it only pardon, but it is the gift of the 
Holy Spirit ; it is the inheritance of the saints ; it 
is everlasting life, which I am about to supplicate. 
And by what measure can I fix in my mind the 
magnitude of these requests ? If we had seen, in 
former times, a Castilian noble about to enter the 
Escurial, that he might solicit an appointment to 
the vice-royalty of Peru, should we not have ex- 
pected strong marks of ambitious desire and deep 
concern for the issue of his suit to appear upon his 
brow ? And yet how strikingly would such a sight 
exhibit the penury and fallaciousness of this world, 
where, while the object sought included power, 
wealth, and magnificence almost regal, the candi- 
date would yet, in fact, be asking, with all the 
devotion of his soul, for a burden of splendid 
cares. When a Christian appears before the King 
of kings, and asks to be prepared and qualified by 
divine influence, for a " crown of life," it is cer- 
tainly nothing resembling this earthly domination, 
or selfish glory, to which he aspires. His requests 

* Dr. Bates. 



48 VI. GREATNESS OF THE 

are consistent with the deepest humility and self- 
renunciation, otherwise he " knows not what he 
asks."* The sum of his requests, when he asks 
aright, is, that he may be enabled perfectly to love 
and glorify God, and "be satisfied with his like- 
ness,"" while all the praise shall redound to the 
infinite Giver. But he neither can, nor ought to 
hide from himself the vastness of these gifts, which 
he is encouraged and commanded to implore. He 
asks the Uncreated Energy to renovate and re- 
mould within him the very image of divine per- 
fection ; and to fit an heir of frailty and transgres- 
sion for incorruptible and eternal joys. 

It might be a weakness, excusable even in a 
thoughtful mind, to be somewhat dazzled by the 
full splendour of earthly empire ; to forget, while 
soliciting a pardon, or a dignity, at the footstool 
of its loftiest possessor, that this imperial hand will 
soon be in the dust, — that I address only the dying 
tenant of a delegated power, whose successor may 
to-morrow reverse his pardons, revoke his dona- 
tions, annul his investitures ; — to forget, that even 
were the donor resolved to make his favours irrevo- 
cable by himself, and no less sure to survive him 
who obtains them, still this pardon could only 

* Mark, x. 38. 



BLESSINGS SOUGHT IN PRAYER. 49 

affect the " life which is a vapour;" these honours 
only extend to the days which are "as a hand- 
breadth." To forget these truths for the moment 
might be a natural weakness. But how strange, 
when approaching " the King, the Lord of hosts," 
the " only Ruler of princes," to experience an 
illusion precisely contrary to this ; to have been 
dazzled by what is false and fleeting, and to be 
dead to what is real and eternal ; and how inex- 
cusable to yield to this illusion with a sort of 
supineness ; to forget, without a struggle, that I 
address Him who is " from everlasting to everlast- 
ing;" of whom " heaven is but the throne, and 
earth the footstool ;" who hath " the keys of Hades 
and of death." 

When I enter on this employment of prayer, 
(which, except when attended with " pomp and 
circumstance," many, that bear the Christian name, 
contemn, in their hearts, as an imbecile and super- 
stitious observance,) I go to entreat what none but 
the Lord of the Universe can give, a pardon sealed 
with the blood of that true Victim, who was " slain 
from the foundation of the world ;" a pardon that 
shall be in force when u the heavens have been 
folded up as a vesture," and when unnumbered 
ages shall have witnessed to the " heirs of promise" 
the faithfulness of Jehovah, and " the immutabi- 

D 



50 VI. — GREATNESS OF THE 

lity of his counsel" — I go to entreat that principle 
of heavenly life, which, if it be kindled, and still 
cherished from the Sun of Righteousness, shall 
gloriously assimilate the soul to Him, in whom 
" is no darkness at all." 

And shall the sneers or the coldness of an in- 
fidel and sensual age, persuade me that this is a 
weak or fanatical employ ? Or shall the drowsi- 
ness of my own spirit degrade it into a lifeless task, 
an " exercise that profiteth little ?? 

But perhaps I plead in extenuation, — it is the 
frequency of the employ, which prevents my rightly 
feeling the importance of prayer, and the greatness 
of its object. Is it then thus with the children 
of this generation in their pursuit of wealth ? 
They are found daily at the same desk ; they 
return to the same details, and inquiries, and en- 
deavours. They labour in the same routine of 
calculation ; every accession to the grand balance 
excites new diligence, and makes the unremitting 
toil more light. The hoped-for aggregate is still 
in view ; and all the irksome steps to its comple- 
tion axe forgotten. " So is he that layeth up 
treasure for himself." And do I, who desire the 
infinitely nobler attainment of being " rich towards 
God," "rich in faith," rich in the treasure of im- 
mortality, do I pretend the sameness, or common- 



* 



BLESSINGS SOUGHT IN PRAYER. 51 

ness, or repetition of engagements which are the 
appointed means of this glorious acquisition, as an 
excuse for pursuing them carelessly ? — Or have the 
suitors and aspirants after court favour, with an 
always-growing sense of the uncertainty of success, 
yet persevered in their heart-sickening round of 
efforts and repulses, " twice told the period spent 
on stubborn Troy," or been induced, through 
successive years, as another of their number has 
mournfully recorded, 

" To lose good days, that might be better spent ; 
To waste long nights in pensive discontent ?" 

And, shall a suitor to the court of heaven, believ- 
ing the incomparable grandeur, and sure attain- 
ableness of the objects of Christian desire and hope, 
plead the long continuance and frequency of his 
suit as an excuse for not urging it still with a 
reverential, but untiring ardour ? Surely, to those 
who receive the promises of the New Testament <as 
divine, that truth needs no demonstration, even if 
it had not proceeded from the mouth of our Saviour 
himself, " Men ought always to pray, and not to 
faint." But it needed, as that Heavenly Teacher 
knew, to be strongly enforced on our unbelieving 
and indolent spirits ; and still must the grounds on 

d 2 






52 VI. GREATNESS OF THE BLESSINGS, &C. 

which it rests be often reviewed by memory and 
by conscience, else the seriousness and fervour of 
our prayer will bear no proportion to the magni- 
tude of the hope set before us, or to the greatness 
and the mercy of Him who hath proposed it* 



VII, 



ON THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVINE INFLUENCE 
UPON THE THOUGHTS. 

It is obvious to an observer of his own mind, 
that a great proportion of his thoughts are unsought 
or involuntary. Objects of sensation, even the 
most minute or trivial, are perpetually exciting new 
ideas ; and so multiplied and diversified are the 
associations to which they give rise, that it is im- 
possible to predict into what train of reflection any 
circumstance may lead us. And not only do out- 
ward objects or incidents excite different thoughts, 
in different minds, and in the same mind at different 
times, but the subsequent thoughts, suggested by 
preceding thoughts, and not by any thing exter- 
nally perceived, are productive of others in a series 
which none can foresee. " So completely, 17 says a 



54 VII. — IMPORTANCE OF 

distinguished philosopher, " is the mind, in this 
particular, subjected to physical laws, that it has 
been justly observed, (by Lord Kaimes and others,) 
we cannot, by an effort of our will, call up any one 
thought ; and that the train of our ideas depends 
on causes which operate in a manner inexplicable 
by us." He adds, " Notwithstanding, however, 
the immediate dependence of the train of our 
thoughts on the laws of association, it must not be 
imagined that the will possesses no influence over 
it. — Of the powers which the mind possesses over 
the train of its thoughts, the most obvious is its 
power of singling out any one of them at pleasure, 
of detaining it, and of making it a particular ob- 
ject of attention. By doing so, we not only stop 
the succession that would otherwise take place, but, 
in consequence of our bringing into view the less 
obvious relations among our ideas, we frequently 
divert the current of our thoughts into a new 
channel."* 

Admitting the last statement, which, though it 
might be perplexed with fruitless objections or 
questions on the nature of the " will" and "power" 
supposed, is practically good and true, I would 



* Stuart's Philosophy of Mind, Vol. I. Chap. V. Part I. 
Sect. 3. pp. 295, 297. 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 55 

use those considerations which my own conscious- 
ness and the speculations of others agree to furnish 
on this very obscure subject, in order to deepen my 
conviction of the importance of spiritual influence. 
If it be impossible for me to predetermine, or fore- 
know, what thoughts will be suggested to my mind, 
even when I am engaged in a particular mental 
occupation, and still more obviously so when my 
attention is not directed to any special study, or 
when a variety of external communications are 
made through the senses, then I cannot calculate in 
how high a degree a special divine influence may or 
might regulate, quite imperceptibly, the succession 
of thought, and the consequent train of desires, 
purposes, and actions. 

As far, indeed, as the first suggestion of thought 
depends upon perception from without, I have to 
ascribe it to the general or providential government 
of God; but the association of one thought with 
another, and of that with a third, and the excite- 
ment thus of a very numerous succession of 
thoughts, is one of the most secret and mysterious 
processes that we can conceive of. It is a sort of 
generative or creative process, inexpressibly rapid, 
and indefinitely variable. 

To illustrate this by example : — I see a rainbow ; 
it may suggest to me the heavenly messenger of 



56 VII. — IMPORTANCE OF 

the Grecian mythology, and lead me, either to the 
poetry of Homer, or the temples of Athens ; to the 
horrors of war, or the beauties of sculpture. Or, 
the brilliancy of the violet rays may bring to mind, 
either the flower of that name, or the rich plumage 
of American birds ; and it may depend on which 
of these associations presents itself, whether I shall 
retrace a rural walk with a departed friend, or 
reflect on the conquest of Mexico, and the wealth 
or barbaric splendour of its monarchs. Or, the 
rainbow may be viewed as the token of God's cove- 
nant, no more to destroy the earth by a deluge ; 
and I may thence be led to reflections on the doom 
of the antediluvians ; to speculations on geology ; 
or to thoughts on that predicted destruction, by an 
opposite element, which awaits the globe. Or, the 
first sight of the rainbow may suggest the New- 
tonian theory of optics ; and this may conduct me, 
either to the telescope or to the microscope, thence 
to the history of insects, or the lunar influence on 
the tides ; or, first, to the character of Newton, 
and then to the capacities of the human intellect. 
These are but a few of the obvious diversities of 
thought, which a familiar object may immediately 
bring into the mind. I know by experience, in 
this particular instance, that the first association has 
been often utterly dissimilar to any of these. And, 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 57 

if the first admits of such variety, how incalcu- 
lable the subsequent multiplication of that variety ! 
How immense is each one of those fields into which 
either of the second or third steps of association 
that have been mentioned would introduce themind, 
and how impossible to foresee on what tract, or 
what point, in either, it would fix, and where it 
would begin to take a different or contrary course. 
How much contemplation, that is animating to 
human hope ; how much that should excite admira- 
tion of divine wisdom ; how much that is con- 
nected with scientific inventions and designs, or 
with that awful consummation of all things which 
the Bible predicts ; how many injurious and 
presumptuous doubts, or how many fruitless 
musings, or how many impure and seductive ima- 
ginations, or frivolous recollections, might arise in 
half an hour, in different minds, or even in one 
and the same mind, all originating in this single 
source ! 

Undoubtedly much will depend on the previous 
inclinations and habits of the understanding and 
the fancy. The theologian, the painter, the agri- 
culturist, the mathematician, the lover of money, 
the voluptuary, will probably have each his pecu- 
liar associations at first presented by the same 
object, and will all likewise be attracted respec- 

d 3 



58 VII. — IMPORTANCE OF 

lively by such of the succeeding train as most 
accord with their desires or pursuits. This 
shews the deep importance both of our practical 
habits, and our habits of thought ; and the 
duty of cultivating those which are good and pro- 
fitable. 

But still, there is, as certainly, in the same mind, 
a vast diversity in the range of thought, according 
to the occurrences, the cares, the tempers, or pas- 
sions, of different periods. The professed study or 
occupation of an individual, is very far, except in 
some cases of most intense devotion to a sole object, 
from determining the occasional, or even ordinary 
current of reflection ; and one of the unnumbered 
ideas that have this hour flitted through a mind 
scarcely conscious of their passage, may at another 
hour be held fast, and become the source of length- 
ened meditation and serious action. 

Nor does the view which has now been taken of 
this subject at all suffice to express the exceedingly 
minute, recondite, and often most improbable 
associations, by which the train of thought is 
incessantly liable to be changed or interrupted. 

But all these considerations tend to shew what 
illimitable opportunity exists for the operation of 
spiritual influence on the soul. That Power, in 
whom I exist, can not only present external ob- 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 59 

jects to impress thought, but can determine which, 
amidst all possible impressions, shall take place ; 
or at any stage, in the career of thought, can sud- 
denly and secretly alter its direction. One asso- 
ciation may be selected from amidst a thousand 
which were as likely to occur, and which might all 
appear alike indifferent or unimportant ; or, in the 
lapse of countless indistinct momentary conceptions, 
the most shadowy and fugitive of the whole may 
be arrested, and made to assume clearness and 
force. 

It is not easy to understand what the philoso- 
pher, who has been cited, meant, when he wrote of 
" the laws of association," and of " physical laws" 
as directing the train of our thoughts ; it is pro- 
bable he meant little more than to give a name to 
operations which he acknowledged " inexplicable." 
He could scarcely suppose general and invariable 
rules by which thoughts proceed from sensations, 
and from each other ; for what could be less cre- 
dible than this supposition to one who had so 
closely observed the endless varieties and anomalies 
in the suggestion and .succession of his own ? But 
even could that supposition be maintained, his 
admission that the mind itself has a power to 
" stop," or " divert the current" of thought, 
evidently overthrows it ; and if the mind itself 



60 VII. IMPORTANCE OF 

have this power, how much more the Supreme 
and Almighty Mind, which formed and governs 
all its faculties ! 

The more carefully and analytically we reflect 
on this subject, the more shall we be convinced, 
that influences of the Divine Spirit may be exer- 
cised within us, in the highest degree beneficial and 
efficacious, and yet entirely indistinguishable from 
the operations of our own mental powers. That 
I should have this idea rather than another, these 
passing remembrances or images instead of those, 
that flow of thought rather than a different one, is a 
thing so far from appearing extraordinary or super- 
natural, that it accords with perpetual experience, 
and excites no attention ; and yet it may arise 
from the express and special agency of the Spirit 
of God, and may ultimately have the most impor- 
tant effects on my course through life, on my 
usefulness, on the well-being of others, on my 
eternal happiness, and theirs. 

It is very material to consider, that this agency 
may, as I have said, be altogether undiscerned, 
and undiscernible by me ; and yet my best pur- 
poses, my purest actions, my escape or recovery 
from temptations, be exclusively and directly its 
result. 

It is reasonable to suppose that the actings of 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 61 

spirit on spirit will be incomparably more refined, 
more exquisitely untraceable, than those which take 
place on corporeal substances ; and yet how in- 
comprehensibly minute and refined are the vital 
functions and changes in the smallest visible crea- 
tures. He who can maintain and renew all the 
complexities of the vital system, and the system of 
instincts, in successive generations of animalcules, 
can surely bring into the mind a thought seemingly 
inconsiderable in itself, which yet may be the 
sole original instrument of the temporal destinies 
of a kingdom, or the everlasting destinies of a 
soul. 

On the whole, these reflections not only expose 
the shallow presumption, the unintelligent pro- 
faneness, of those who deride the doctrine of 
spiritual influence^ but they should also greatly 
heighten my persuasion of the paramount im- 
portance of prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit ; 
of the unknown benefits which such prayer may 
have already procured me, by influences secretly 
leading to good, and diverting from evil ; and of 
the still happier and more decisive results which 
may be expected from continuing, more importu- 
nately, to entreat this unseen control and direc- 
tion. Let me never begin the day without ear- 
nestly imploring, that the great Searcher of hearts 



62 VII. IMPORTANCE, &C. 

would " cleanse the thoughts of my heart by the 
inspiration of his Holy Spirit;" that he would 
turn the current of my soul, " as the rivers of 
water, whithersoever he will !" 



VIIL 



ON EXEMPTION FROM SEVERE BODILY DISEASE 
AND HARM, AND ITS IMPROVEMENT. 

It is only by a participation comparatively 
slight, and this, through the preventing goodness 
of the great Preserver, very unfrequent, that I 
have been experimentally taught the severity of 
those bodily sufferings to which we all are liable. 
In any part of this frame, so " curiously wrought," 
so variously assailable, subject to derangements so 
numerous — acute pain might, in this hour, be per- 
mitted to arise, which would absorb and oppress 
the mind, incapacitate it alike for fulfilling the 
active offices or enjoying the comforts allotted to 
me, and induce distressful forebodings of a pro- 



64 VIII. EXEMPTION FROM DISEASE, 

longed anguish which no human skill might 
remove. Or a partial, and, in some respects, 
trifling harm, might confine me to one spot ; for- 
bidding all variety of scene or of exertion. The 
invaluable organs of sight, of hearing, or of speech, 
might be quickly destroyed or impaired, and the 
principal employments of my life, with many of 
the mutual blessings of society, must then be at 
once resigned. Or some disease might assault me 
which should involve the afflictive hazard of con- 
tagion to others, or be attended with peculiar and 
extreme mortification to myself. 

But are not these, and other bodily ills, incident 
to our earthly condition, so well known, so often 
suggested by observing the calamities of those 
around us, — or have not they been so much dwelt 
upon in every form of moral and pious admonition, 
— that it is quite superfluous to recal and enu- 
merate them ? 

Obvious, and almost inevitable, as may be the 
kind of reflection which they prompt, it has not 
yet been deep and efficacious, (and therefore 
claims to be presented yet again,) unless it pro- 
duce a constant, heartfelt, and practical gratitude 
to God. 

Have I to confess that His lenity and kindness 
are sometimes unacknowledged and unthought of, 



AND ITS IMPROVEMENT. 



65 



who has exempted me, notwithstanding multiplied 
provocations of his justice, from this class of grievous 
trials ? Or, while daily presenting supplications 
for new mercies, can I frequently be content to 
revert to these, which have been so long continued, 
or to recognize their actual continuance at this 
moment, with a mere heartless ceremonial acknow- 
ledgment ? Then are there, indeed, humbling 
reasons for me to review more feelingly their variety 
and their value. 

But besides this strong claim on me for cordial 
thanksgiving, (the neglect or cold fulfilment of 
which might itself have justly incurred repeated 
forfeitures of the blessings that demand it,) the 
exemption from severe bodily calamity should also 
powerfully engage me to diligence in every duty ; 
to a watchful concern for all spiritual improve- 
ment ; to perseverance in prayer for all spiritual 
benefits. While such exemption is granted, I am 
not only more capable of bodily, but of mental 
activity ; and especially am more competent to 
regular and enlarged exercises of worship, than I 
can hope to be in seasons of great debility, or 
restlessness, or pain. 

How weak and ungrateful, therefore, is it to 
repine under trivial indisposition, or yield to passing 
languor; rather let me remember the sufferers 



66 VIII. — EXEMPTION FROM DISEASE, 

who are " weary with their groaning ; M who are 
" full of tossings to and fro until the dawning of 
the day ;" who obtain few and short intermissions 
of the most distressing and torturing sensations. 
On these, the mercy of Him, who " despiseth not 
his prisoners,' 1 will compassionately wait, and their 
"sighing" shall "come before him;" but from me, 
while indulged with this ability and opportunity to 
wait upon my God, there should arise the more 
ample and unwearied petitions for every sacred 
gift, that can renew, and strengthen, and purify, 
and enrich the soul. 

It cannot, or ought not to be unperceived by 
me, that, although I am thus favoured with bodily 
ease and health, the moral disorders of the spirit 
are many and variable ; some more habitual and 
insiduous, others more occasional and violent. The 
selfish and angry passions sometimes inflict a 
wound, which nothing but new supplies of the 
gra'ce of humility can heal ; feverish desires, and 
aching discontents, and wasting anxieties, invade 
the breast, which the lenitive of resignation and the 
cordial of heavenly hope alone can soothe. That 
faintness or palsy of the will, which is evinced by 
a backwardness to self-denying duties, by shrink- 
ing from exertions which conscience claims, and by 
general " weariness in well doing," may be found 



AND ITS IMPROVEMENT. 67 

in humiliating connexion with a physical health 
and strength, that have been denied to some of the 
most laborious servants of God, and most indefati- 
gable friends of mankind ;— and whence, but from 
a divine energy, quickening and upholding my 
best resolves, shall these spiritual maladies receive 
an effectual cure ? Conscious, as I must be, of 
some, if not of all those internal evils, how can I 
hope, even partially, to subdue and expel them, 
unless, by a vigilant use of present advantages and 
facilities, I embrace the favouring occasion which 
a gracious Providence bestows ? Is it not now the 
time for progress in his service, for alacrity and 
steadfastness in every good work, for zealously and 
importunately seeking, from the Author of Good, 
that complete renovation and health of the soul, 
which should be the first object of my solicitude ? 
If life itself be given and prolonged for this great 
end, then that measure of bodily health and ease, 
on which the full use of life depends, should 
assuredly be considered, and appreciated, and 
employed, with a reference to the same exalted 
purpose. 

My present condition, in which a prevalence of 
these blessings is combined with such allotments of 
past and present trial, as have deeply imprinted on 



68 VIII. EXEMPTION FROM DISEASE, 

the heart the ills that life includes, (a condition 
graciously assigned to many,) is peculiarly adapted 
to admit and promote the earnest and successful 
prosecution of our highest good. Have our chas- 
tisements been numerous and severe enough most 
intimately to convince us, that we must look to 
Heaven for what is substantial and unfailing ? Has 
the " Father of our spirits" imposed corrections 
which have sufficed, as instruments of his divine 
power, to awaken and revive a sense of our de- 
pendence; of our demerits, of our spiritual exigen- 
cies ? — And yet, are these so graciously moderated, 
especially with regard to bodily suffering, that they 
still leave the capacity for pursuing active duties, 
and seeking spiritual supplies, in a great degree 
complete ? 

Can there be a more cogent reason for grateful 
and instant assiduity, both in action and devo- 
tion ? 

Even that exalted Person who was alone entitled 
to say, " None taketh my life from me, but I lay 
it down of myself;" said also, (and the solemn 
declaration has more force than an injunction,) " / 
must work the works of Him that sent me, while it 
is day ; — the night cometh, when none can work." 
— To us, not only a day of life, but a day of 



AND ITS IMPROVEMENT. 69 

health, of strength, of ease, is a pure gratuity, 
which only Almighty power and goodness can 
confer; and though this gratuity has been reiterated 
and multiplied so long, — who can insure it for 
to-morrow ? 






IX. 



ON INTERCESSORY PRAYER FOR RELATIVES 
AND FRIENDS. 



Boundless and invaluable means of beneficence, 
both social and secret, are ever open to those who 
believe in the efficacy of prayer for others : which 
no one that truly receives the Scriptures, can deli- 
berately question. Has it been enough observed, 
how vast is the worth of the Christian revelation 
in this particular view : and how considerable an 
argument of its divinity, as far as that is corrobo- 
rated by every new aspect or development of its 
worth, may be hence deduced ? Without discuss- 
ing the creeds of heathens, ancient or modern, it 
is plain, that in countries where Christianity pre- 
vails, those who do not seriously receive it, have 
generally no settled belief (if indeed any belief at 






IX. — INTERCESSION, &C. 71 

all) in the direct benefits of prayer, whether per- 
sonal or intercessory. Yet in some of these persons, 
the sympathies of nature are so far from being 
extinct, that they appear in the tenderest forms of 
emotion, and the most engaging acts of humanity. 
I shall never forget the suppressed tears of a late 
amiable metaphysician and poet, when bidding 
farewell to the youthful assembly whom his elo- 
quence had charmed, who were then to disperse 
themselves from that scene of academic enjoyment, 
into the varied and eventful paths of busy life. 
This indeed might be only a vague and transient 
sentiment of melancholy, on the occasion which 
always tends to excite it, — the last time. But 
how would the same refined and susceptible spirit 
have felt, had he, like Sir William Jones in India, 
prevailed with a beloved wife, languishing under 
dangerous indisposition, to quit him for Europe ; 
or like multitudes beside, been as remotely sepa- 
rated, by his or their pursuits, from the indivi- 
duals most dear to him ? If, as was feared bv 
some who enjoyed the intellectual luxury of his 
private intercourse, this fine mind had not at that 
period decisively embraced the Christian revelation, 
it is highly probable, that, notwithstanding his 
eloquent defences of the doctrine of Divine Provi- 
dence, and the souFs immortality, he possessed no 



72 IX. INTERCESSION FOR 

fixed confidence in the direct efficacy of prayer.* 
And then how powerless, in his own estimation, 
would have been his deepest solicitude for the 
absent ; how bitterly unavailing the tenderest 
wishes and regrets to which events might give 
birth ! * — Even were there not other and fg 
weightier reasons for our desire, that both " the 
wise and the unwise" might believe the gospel, 
this one would seem sufficient ; — the comfort de- 
rived from that benevolence which is exercised in 
prayer, towards those whom we may have little or 
no power otherwise to aid, or influence, or requite. 
There is no need that a continent or a sea be inter- 
posed, in order to deprive us of this power. For a 
child in a distant city, for a relative in another pro- 
vince, for a friend in sickness or calamity, for one 
who has our best wishes, but whom painful cir- 
cumstances forbid us to meet, how little can some- 
times be done, or even attempted, unless faith re- 
sort to that exercise of kindness, too often despised 
or distrusted by man, but chosen and prescribed 
by God, which entreats for them infinitely more 
than man can give. By the art of writing, and the 
facility of conveying what is written (both which 
are subjects of gratitude), I may, indeed, address 

* See Note A, at the end of the volume. 



RELATIVES AND FRIENDS. 73 

to each some words of affectionate counsel or sym- 
pathy ; but, besides that these communications 
cannot be very copious or frequent, and sometimes 
are wholly precluded, how small is their real value, 
justly and highly as we may often prize them, 
when compared with that of heartfelt addresses on 
our behalf to Him from whom " every good gift 
and every perfect boon'"* descends ! The affec- 
tionate wishes of a Christian friend, should for this 
be most valued, that they may be accounted an 
intimation, and almost an implied pledge, of his 
affectionate prayers, which are far better. — It has 
been the pleasing compact of some, closely joined 
in heart, but widely distant in place, to look at the 
same hour on the same luminary, to watch the 
beam of the same rising moon, or evening star, and 
thus to imagine a kind of sensible union, by being 
alike and at once present to the same beautiful 
object. How does it heighten and substantiate 
this device of friendship, (which else is compara- 
tively a fruitless and empty refinement,) to com- 
mune not merely with a bright emblem of the 
divine bounty, but with the omnipresent Benefac- 
tor himself ; to pour out mutual intercession before 
the " Father of" these heavenly " lights," " with 

* See Note B, at the end of the volume. 
E 



74 IX. INTERCESSION FOR 

whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turn- 
ing." My dearest friend may be in another hemi- 
sphere ; or, though but a few leagues divide us, a 
cloud may conceal that star from one which rises in 
brightness to the other ; but if we devoutly inter- 
cede for each other's welfare, before Him by whose 
presence all time and space are comprised, — our 
supplications, whether offered at one or at different 
hours, form a real and intimate communion with 
each other and with Him ; a communion fraught, 
we trust, not only with soothing sentiments, but 
with real blessings. The showers of Britain and 
of Sumatra, fall or flow into the same mighty 
deep ; — the tears of Christian sympathy " poured 
out to God, v though shed in the remotest climates, 
may be said to drop into the same ocean of His 
loving-kindness^ and to be mingled there. 

But, besides this, our kindest thoughts and 
wishes for our friends cannot be freely expressed 
to them, unless regard be strictly reciprocal, and 
sentiment on the most important points be similar. 
The most faithful and thankworthy offices of 
kindred and friendship, are well known to be the 
most difficult. If I perceive or learn that any for 
whom I am interested, have imbibed false princi- 
ples, or joined seducing associates ; if I judge that 
their situation may invite to a course which will 



RELATIVES AND FRIENDS. 75 

endanger peace and prosperity ; or that they are 
hitherto thoughtless of revealed truths and of 
eternal prospects, or perpetually diverted from 
them ; — yet how hard is it, in any mode of inter- 
course, to convey beneficially such kind admoni- 
tions or expostulations as my regard would prompt ! 
How generally distasteful, sometimes how strongly 
repulsive, to persons of every age and class, is this 
sort of friendly interference ! How do pride, and 
the passions, in their various forms, revolt from it, 
and view him that attempts it as officious or 
severe, censorious or timid, narrow, melancholic, or 
illiberal ! Not that the risk of these imputations 
or impressions should prevent us from attempting 
the duty, though it should make us circumspect as 
to the fit manner and the fit opportunity. The duty 
involves self-denial ; it approaches to what Saurin 
has emphatically termed "moral martyrdom;" 
and, therefore, if only as a test of sincerity and 
exercise of Christian fortitude, it should not be 
wholly declined ; but yet, must not the experience 
of its great difficulty, and the belief of its small 
success, nay, its apparent ill effect at times, lead 
me to prize ten-fold the free indefeasible privilege 
of secret intercession for those on whose behalf I 
feel so deep concern ; a duty far less difficult, and 
probably, in many cases, incomparably more bene- 

e 2 



76 IX. INTERCESSION FOR 

ficial ? My child, eager in the chase of some new 
pleasure, my parent fixed in some growing habit, 
my friend intrenched in his favourite opinions, my 
kinsman earnest in some absorbing pursuit, may, 
each, really if not avowedly, find my most guarded 
and affectionate suggestions unwelcome. But me- 
thinks it cannot to either be unwelcome, nay, must 
move the heart of each, if he believe that the voice 
of secret prayer entreats for him the checks and 
the incitements of an omnipresent Friend, the all- 
powerful monitions and blessed illuminations of a 
heavenly Guide, the " repentance and remission of 
sins," the grace, and wisdom, and renovation from 
above, w r hich insure unchangeable joy. 

And who can say what are not, or shall not be 
the happy effects, immediate or remote, of our 
prayers " one for another?" Can I remember critical 
points in my own history, or have such been dis- 
closed to me in the history of others, when either 
bodily danger has been imminent, or different and 
greater perils have impended ; when the mind, the 
character, has been on the brink of a gulf, drawn 
on by a pernicious allurement, entangled in a 
hidden snare, oppressed with trials hardly to be 
borne, urged towards the edge of a frightful des- 
peration ? — And who can tell that the prayer of a 
departed parent, long since uttered and recorded, 



RELATIVES AND FRIENDS. 77 

or the tender intercession of a friend far away, was 
not as the chosen invisible thread, which, in the 
hand of a gracious Providence, held me back from 
ruin ? Who knows that it was not declared by 
Him to whom all power in heaven and in earth is 
given, or by some rejoicing minister of his com- 
passion? — The prayers of my servant, to whom 
thou wast and art so dear, have come up as a 
memorial on thy behalf. Those secret supplica- 
tions are the instrument by which the fulfilment 
of my merciful purpose is procured. In remem- 
brance of them, I rescue thee from this destruction. 
— And, although every source of hope is liable to 
perversion, this can hardly encourage, in the 
minds of the irreligious, a delusive reliance on the 
prayers of others, as superseding their own. Guilt 
and danger would be consciously aggravated by 
such a presumptuous trust, which implies a measure 
of belief in the momentous truths that are person- 
ally slighted. None can rationally expect, at least 
as to his highest interest, eventual benefit from the 
intercession of another, till he is effectually prompted 
to prayers and endeavours for himself. But none, 
when so prompted, can be injured by the grateful 
and affecting thought, that his truest earthly friends 
may have instrumentally procured for him the 
awakening influence of that Supreme Friend, to 



78 IX. INTERCESSION FOR 

whom he owes supreme gratitude. Nor let it seem 
more difficult to believe the initial efficacy of inter- 
cessory, than of personal prayer, even towards the 
procurement of everlasting benefits. All prayer is 
but an instituted means, connected by the Almighty 
with his own gracious purpose, and when viewed 
in this true light, (apart from any idea of power or 
merit in the suppliant or the recipient,) the one 
kind of prayer may be as readily and safely con- 
ceived to be efficacious as the other. It would, 
indeed, be unscriptural for the offerer (as well as 
for the object) of intercession, to believe that it can 
procure the spiritual and eternal good of another, 
unless it first instrumentally procure for him that 
change of mind, by which he shall be personally 
disposed to seek and obtain the pre-requisites of 
happiness ; but nothing forbids the hope that it 
may initially conduce to these blessed results ; on 
the contrary, the facts and promises of scripture 
intimate that it often does so. Intercession for 
near friends is, in pious minds, a strong dictate of 
feeling ; and ample assurances sanction our belief 
that these, like all their prayers, shall be, some way 
or other, not in vain. How delightful is it to 
hope, when we see the objects of fond solicitude in 
any degree answer our dearest wishes, that prayer 
has not been in vain ! 



RELATIVES AND FRIENDS. 79 

Should this, however, be far from apparent : 
should I have to reflect, as many have with equal 
grief, — Thus far my earnest and long-offered 
prayers seem fruitless ; — yet how do I know, that 
although they have not yet procured the desired 
good, they have not averted far higher degrees of 
evil ? How do I know but that they will be fully 
answered at length, and the final effusions of gra- 
titude both to the Author of good, and to me its 
feeble instrument, be ample in proportion to the 
greatness of His long suffering, and the perse- 
verance of my poor affection, itself derived from 
Him ? — No doubt, in a future state, our gratitude 
towards the instruments of good, will be more con- 
stantly and entirely subordinate, as a feeling, than 
it can be here : because the sensible presence of 
Him that hath " so loved*" us, must give an incon- 
ceivably higher tone to the respondent emotion of 
love towards Him ; but this affords no sort of 
ground for supposing that our grateful and affec- 
tionate feelings towards the humblest instruments 
of good will be lessened. On the contrary, it is 
obvious that they may be delightfully augmented, 
and yet be more subordinate relatively to Him who 
is worthy of infinite praises, and who, probably, 
has destined all the happy to an immeasurable pro- 
gression in love. What then will it be for the per- 



80 IX.— INTERCESSION FOR RELATIVES, &C. 

fected spirit to embrace with grateful delight those 
whom divine goodness prompted to seek its felicity, 
as well as to bow in rapture before that Saviour who 
purposed, and prepared, and dispenses all felicity, 
yea, who is himself " all and in all ?" With what 
feelings then shall the child bless his parent, the 
husband his wife, the friend his friend, before the 
throne of God, repeating with ardent acknowledg- 
ment, — this was the unwearied and tender suppliant 
for my happiness, — this the beloved hand which 
thy grace taught to sue, and to receive for me, the 
gift of repentance ! 

And what will be the correspondent joy of those 
whose weak petitions shall be so remembered and 
rewarded ! — How can I neglect such a duty as this, 
a duty which ought to be so pleasing and conso- 
latory now, and which will yield, there is every 
reason to conclude, so affecting and delightful a 
recompense hereafter ? How can I neglect, while 
observing in some measure the letter and semblance 
of the duty, to fulfil it also in 6i spirit and in 
truth ?" 



X. 



ON THE MEANS BY WHICH OUR THOUGHTS 
OF THE MORAL PERFECTIONS OF DEITY 
MAY BE ELEVATED. 

It should be my study to obtain a stronger and 
more vivid impression of the moral attributes of 
God, than of those which are intellectual or phy- 
sical only, or so conceived of by us. For the 
former more intimately affect the well-being, and 
should therefore more deeply excite the joy and 
adoration of his creatures. 

But the contemplation of the greatness and wis- 
dom of the Deity is one kind of measure by which 
to estimate his moral attributes, though (I suspect) 
not enough resorted to for this purpose. It is a 
truth inseparable from the idea of God, that, in 
Him are all perfections, and in infinite degrees.* 

* This is perhaps no where more succinctly demonstrated 
than in Grotius de Verit. Rel. Christ. Lib. i. s. 4, 5. 

E 3 



82 X. MORAL PERFECTIONS 

But we know not how to conceive of perfection, 
and least of all, of an infinite moral perfection.* 
The moral excellence which we have experienced 
or witnessed in fallen human nature, even in its 
most ennobled and purified state on earth, is so 
imperfect and so limited, that it affords no just 
analogy by which to rise to the notion of the moral 
excellence of Deity. But the Creator, having 
placed before our eyes the sensible proofs of his 
boundless power, of his immense wisdom, of his 
exquisite skill, we should attempt to measure by 
this vast scale, the immensity of his benevolence ; 
the universality and exactness of his equity ; the 
sublimity and refinement of his holiness ; the 
boundlessness of his love. 

No doubt, there is a contradiction in the very 
thought of measuring what is infinite ; but, since 
we are of necessity unable adequately to conceive 
of the infinite, we should aim at some approxima- 
tion ; and it will certainly extend our narrow con- 
ceptions towards infinitude, to avail ourselves of the 
grandest measures which the senses (and that sci- 
entific use of them which philosophy has made) 
can afford, either in the way of figurative compa- 
rison, or, more strictly, in the way of analogy. 

When I look on the noon-day sun, and con- 
* See Note C, at the end of the volume. 



OF THE DEITY. 83 

sider " the immensity of the sphere which is filled 
with particles "* of light issuing from it, let me 
remember this is an emblem, yet only a very 
partial emblem, of the munificence of the Cre- 
ator; for He has fixed in space a mighty host 
of suns, from each of which light has been directed 
to my eye. Or, let me thus reason in the way of 
analogy. — The Creator directs, perpetually, from 
unnumbered luminaries, throughout immeasurable 
spaces, particles of light, the minuteness, and ve- 
locity, and multitude of which, it is impossible 
for the human imagination to conceive. Here, 
then, is exhibited a part of his wisdom and power ; 
but the attributes of God are all alike inexhaustible 
or infinite ; some part, therefore, of his goodness, 
or rectitude, must be equal to so much of wisdom 
and power, as is here displayed. 

Dr. Paley has brilliantly set forth the view which 
the creation gives of the physical attributes of 
Deity, when he says, " At one end (of the scale) 
we see an intelligent Power arranging planetary 
systems ; fixing, for instance, the trajectory of 
Saturn, or constructing a ring of two hundred 
thousand miles diameter, to surround his body, 
and be suspended, like a magnificent arch, over the 

* Paley's Natural Theology, p. 376. 



84 X. MORAL PERFECTIONS 

heads of his inhabitants ; and at the other, bend- 
ing a hooked tooth, concerting and providing 
appropriate mechanism for the clasping and re- 
clasping of the filaments of the feather of a hum- 
ming-bird."* Let me apply this scale to the moral 
attributes. Reason tells me that they are equal to 
the physical ; i. e. perfect and infinite. Revela- 
tion enumerates them. " A God of truth, and 
without iniquity ; just and right is He." " Shall 
not the Judge of all the earth do right ?" " He is 
glorious in holiness." " The Lord God, merciful 
and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in 
goodness and truth." " His compassions fail not. 1 ' 
" God is love." 

Do I wish, then, to augment my impression of 
the stability of this truth or faithfulness ; of the 
correctness and infallibility of this justice ; of the 
plenitude of this mercy ; the vastness of this love ? 
May not an augmented impression be attained by 
considering a part of the greatness of a natural 
attribute, (which is visibly or demonstrably ob- 
served,) as equal to, and representative of, some 

part of the greatness of a moral attribute ? For 

example : — As is that stability of divine power 
which continually sustains the planet Saturn, a 

* Natural Theology, page 540. 



OF THE DEITY. 85 

mass one thousand times greater than our world,* 
and guides, together with its immense ring, and 
seven moons, in the same orbit round the 3un, from 
age to age, at the distance of nine hundred mil- 
lions of miles from that luminary, and with an 
hourly velocity of twenty-two thousand miles,— 
so is a degree or part of the stability of divine 
truth. 

As are that diversity and exquisiteness of divine 
skill, which form and discriminate in all climates, 
and in all ages, the rudiments of an emmet^ and of 
the grain which it collects, causing each to repro- 
duce its kind, or which create the particles of 
light of such an inconceivable smallness, that, 
although darted from the sun at the rate of two 
hundred thousand miles in a second, they strike, 
without wounding them, the petals of the most 
delicate flower, or the retina of an insect's eye,t — 
so are some degrees of the extent and exactitude of 
God's retributive justice. 

As is that stupendous energy of attraction^ by 

* The calculations of magnitudes, distances, &c, as given in 
the more and less recent popular works, considerably vary. 
These are adopted from Bonnycastle's Introduction. Edit. vi. 
(1811,) pp. 34 and 270. 

+ See Natural Theology, page 376 ; and Ferguson's Astro- 
nomy, page 87. 



86 X. — MORAL PERFECTIONS 

which the Almighty Ruler governs all the planets 
of our system, rushing through their vast revolu- 
tions, " enormous globes, held by nothing, con- 
fined by nothing, turned into free and boundless 
space,"* and as is that mighty, yet gentle educ- 
tion of vegetative life, by which He calls forth the 
foliage on ten thousand forests, and renews the 
plants, and fruits, and flowers, of every zone and 
region, — so is a portion of the unsearchable 
strength and exceeding tenderness of divine love. 
" Lo, these are parts of his ways : but how little 
a portion is heard of Him !" For what are the 
herbs, or flowers, or insects of a single planet, 
(though the organization, and vitality, and repro- 
duction of either of these classes, unspeakably 
transcends our thoughts of possible skill,) when 
compared with the probable and ^inconceivable 
multiplicity of such wonders in the universe ? Or 
what is the magnitude, swiftness, or unerring re- 
volution of one world, or one system of worlds, 
(though each of these baffles all our conceptions of 
grandeur,) when compared with the vastness and 
multitude of those fixed stars or suns, some of 
which have been computed to be at least four 
hundred thousand times more distant than the sun 

• Paley. 



OF THE DEITY. 87 

which enlightens our earth ?* When, therefore, I 
thus attempt to estimate in part, any moral per- 
fection of Deity, (although my apprehension of it 
will certainly be raised far higher, than by more 
vague and cursory views and expressions,) I am 
well aware that the highest measures which our 
faculties can, with any sort of distinctness, realize 
or apply, are but indefinitely small parts of those 
which would be attained by a wider survey, and 
more intimate knowledge of the works of God. 

But divine revelation affords me a different, and 
a direct, measure of the moral attributes of Deity : 
a measure which is adequate also, (if we could but 
adequately conceive of it,) because it is infinite : 
that is, the union of the Divine nature with the 
human, in the person of our Saviour. It will be 
acknowledged, by all who receive this amazing fact, 
that the primary design of it is the manifestation 
of those perfect attributes : that design being 
inclusive of human salvation, and probably of many 
other glorious effects which eternity will disclose. 
Thus the grand design of what is made known to 
man, whether in the works or in the word of God, 

* Ferguson's Astronomy, pp. 2 and 109. But it should be 
rather said, that the distance utterly exceeds our means of 
calculation ; since it appears that the parallax of the fixed 
stars is wholly insensible. 



88 X. — MORAL PERFECTIONS 

is to exhibit to him his Creator's perfections. And 
in both ways of communication, the Deity, if I 
may use such an expression without irreverence, 
addresses his feeble creature in vast and sublime 
hieroglyphics. It is not by fleeting voices, or by 
mere written declarations, that he announces his 
perfections. When he would impress on us his 
omnipotent wisdom, he sets before us the earth and 
the heavens, the wonders of innumerable worlds. 
When he would make known the infinity of his 
holiness, justice, and love, he records, that the 
" Word who was with God, and was God," " with- 
out whom was not any thing made that was made," 
assumed our nature into personal union with the 
divine, and, in that assumed nature, became a 
sacrifice for sin. It is true, this is (necessarily) 
recorded in words ; for the stupendous fact, which 
is the subject of the record, could not stand perma- 
nently before the eyes of man, in the present world, 
as the facts of creation do, unless the Son of God, 
in his glorified state, had remained on earth, or his 
abode had become accessible or visible to us in our 
present condition, which would have been quite 
inconsistent with a state of probation, or " life by 
faith." But it is the fact of the incarnation, not 
the record, which is the expression or measure of 
the moral perfections of the Godhead. Words are 






OF THE DEITT. 89 

not adequate signs or symbols of the divine attri- 
butes : divine acts can alone enunciate these. 

In other worlds, (possibly, at some period, to 
all moral beings,) the fact of the incarnation of the 
" Word'" is or will be sensibly displayed, by the 
view of that nature wherein he suffered, in its 
exaltation to the throne of God : and thus the 
moral attributes of Him, that " spared not his own 
Son," are even more illustriously exhibited, than 
are his intelligence and power by the spectacle of 
the material universe. " He that liveth and was 
dead," for ever occupies the " holy of holies," 
within the illimitable temple of creation, and pro- 
claims to all creatures, " by the form he bears," 
that in Deity there is infinite holiness and infinite 
love. 

That kind of measure of these attributes, which 
was first named, is confessedly indirect and insuf- 
ficient ; it is an attempt at comparison with other 
attributes, as exhibited in works which are in some 
sense, notwithstanding their magnificence, finite ; 
but the " great mystery of godliness" displays 
these moral perfections by a deed of condescension, 
which we can no otherwise conceive of than as 
infinite. If the incarnation of Deity be more 
astonishing (which the incredulity of many seems 
to prove) than the creation of the universe, by so 



90 X. MORAL PERFECTIONS 

much the more forcibly and eloquently does it 
express his moral attributes, than the creation 
" uttereth" his intellectual perfection. And this 
may be used as a considerable argument for the 
truth of the fact, and of that interpretation of the 
record which upholds it. For if those attributes 
of God which are morale be more excellent than 
all others, (and this, I suppose, cannot be denied,) 
it is reasonable to infer, that the manifestation of 
the most excellent would be the most astonishing 
and glorious ; that the wonders by which perfect 
purity, justice, and compassion are evinced, would 
be such as to exceed those by which wisdom and 
power are displayed. It was worth the creation 
of the material worlds to exhibit to all spiritual 
natures the depths of the divine intellect ; but it 
was worth the incarnation of Him by whom " all 
things were," to exhibit to all spiritual natures the 
heights of the divine rectitude and mercy. 

Is then the first kind of measure, by which I 
attempted to raise my thoughts of the moral per- 
fections of God, superseded or become useless, in 
the contemplation of that unparalleled fact, by 
which the Christian revelation teaches me to esti- 
mate them ? Quite otherwise ; because while I 
deduce the greatness of these moral perfections 
from the appearances of nature, I obtain, in the 



OF THE DEITY, 9 1 

agreement of this deduction with the declarations 
of scripture, and with the inference derivable from 
the most wonderful fact which it reveals, a corro- 
boration of the divine truth both of the declarations 
and the fact. And besides, if it were best to resort 
exclusively to the incarnation, as the direct and most 
sublime proof of the moral attributes of the God- 
head, it would, not the less, be advantageous, 
frequently first to meditate on the " eternal power" 
and wisdom of the " Godhead," as " understood 
by the things that are made." For when I would 
contemplate the Son of God, " whom he hath 
appointed heir of all things," " by whom also he 
made the worlds," and who " upholds all things 
(or, " the universe,"*) by the word of his power," 
as having, " by himself, made purification of our 
sins," it will surely enhance my sense of the won- 
derful condescension of this act, and of the moral 
perfections which prompted it, first to reflect dis- 
tinctly on some portion of those " worlds," some 
phenomena of that " universe." When I have 
intently considered a single planet, or a single 
satellite, moving through the heaven ; or have 
thought of that vast mass of waters which covers 
but a part of our own globe ; or have attentively 

* ra nt&rra. Compare Heb. i. 3. and Col. i. 16, 17, with 
Eph. iii. 9. 2 Peter iii. 4, and especially Rev. iv. 11. a 



92 X.— MORAL PERFECTIONS OF THE DEITY. 

observed the shielded " gauze wings of the beetle,"* 
or the " jointed proboscis" of the bee,-f- I have a 
much more exalted idea of Him who u made the 
worlds," and who " upholdeth all things," than 
as if I had merely read these or other declarations 
of his power ; and in proportion to my real appre- 
hension of his greatness, will be my appreciation of 
whatever divine attributes are exhibited by his 
voluntary abasement. ^ 

* Paley's Natural Theology, page 321. + Ibid, page 325—6. 



XI. 



ON SEEKING TO EXCITE IN OURSELVES A 
SPIRIT OF JOYFUL PRAISE. 

Our worship seems but a strange preparative 
for heaven, unless praise and thanksgiving form a 
material part of it ; and, indeed, unless our praise 
be accompanied by joyful feelings. 

Yet he, who by constant and earnest practice, 
acquires an increasing skill in music, although his 
present situation and temper lead him chiefly, and 
most cordially, to exercise himself in that of the 
plaintive and mournful kind, will be prepared, 
when in different circumstances, to execute melo- 
dies, or join in harmonies of an animated and 
exulting strain ; and so, we trust, he that earnestly 
cultivates a more and more intimate converse with 
God, although it may now consist, in a great 



94 XI. PRAISE SHOULD BE EXCITED. 

measure, of sorrowful confession and unsatisfied de- 
sire, will yet be fitted, by these very exercises, for an 
opposite employment of the same devotional habit, 
the same heavenly science, in that region where 
adoration and gratitude shall be the unavoidable 
overflowing from a fulness of delight. The musi- 
cian, however, if he have reason to expect that he 
is to take part, ere long, in some great festival, 
where every chorus, and every note, will be in the 
strain of gladness and triumph, ought frequently 
now to attempt these exercises of his art, both in 
solitude and in society ; for though his pensive mood 
may not accord with them, this is but fit respect 
to the patron who gave him his instrument, and 
who designed it ultimately for that most honour- 
able and delightful use. He should remember also, 
that these preludes may, in some measure, dispel 
the feelings with which they disagree, and awaken 
those which they express. The application is 
obvious ; but still the difficulty of him, who, when 
oppressed with sadness, would make " melody 
in his heart," is far greater. The musician can 
produce the same notes as if his soul was in every 
vibration of the strings, though -the grace and 
vigour of expression and execution may be less ; 
but it is hard when the heart is depressed, even^to 
utter a form of words, which conveys and implies 






XI. PRAISE SHOULD BE EXCITED. 95 

the sentiment of gladness and thanksgiving ; much 
more to excite and sustain the thoughts by which 
such language is prompted. 

There should seem little need to enjoin the 
duty of thanksgiving on those Christians, who, 
while on the one hand, they are unassailed by any 
acute pain or burdensome anxiety of this life, 
enjoy on the other hand, a vivid hope of heavenly 
blessedness ; or in whom, if the pains and anxieties 
of time become more severe, this pressure is over- 
balanced by a livelier foresight of the joys of eter- 
nity. Such persons, while these peculiar favours 
and supports are bestowed, must be, like the apos- 
tles, "though sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;" 
and it seems impossible that their gladness should 
not flow forth in fervent thanksgiving. But there 
is a state of mind, in which, without even imagin- 
ing that we are in an absolute destitution of 
Christian faith and hope, and with a very deep 
sense of the value of these dispositions, we may 
yet find it exceedingly difficult to rejoice in their 
objects. This is often, at the least partly, to be 
ascribed to natural disorder or debility, either se- 
cretly arising from the inexplicable and refined 
sympathy of the mind and body, or from adverse 
events and circumstances which have affected both. 
In this state the imagination cannot freely act, but 



96 XI. — PRAISE SHOULD BE EXCITED. 

is strongly drawn towards thoughts of fear, doubt, 
and sorrow. 

Nor let it appear to disparage the genuineness 
or reality of the objects of religious joy, when the 
term imagination is used. However real and 
however great an object may be, whether earthly 
or heavenly, if it is not under the cognizance of 
the senses, imagination alone can set it in a lively 
manner before us. If it never has been subjected 
to the senses, and in our present state cannot be, 
then imagination can draw no aid from memory, 
and therefore requires to be more strongly awak- 
ened and exercised in order to embody it. The 
lively, joyful exercise of faith, is in effect an exer- 
cise not of belief alone, but of imagination likewise. 

The apostle's expression, " we look at the things 
which are unseen" justifies this view of it. If we 
would exercise a vivid apprehensive faith, even in 
an object purely spiritual, as in the Infinite Spirit 
himself, it must be not by bare belief, but by an 
attempt to conceive or image to ourselves (though 
there be a necessary impropriety in this language, 
and in our narrow conceptions) the attributes and 
operations of a perfect mind. And with regard to 
all other celestial objects, we are compelled to view 
them under images of matter, and form, and place, 
in order to attain any thing like distinctness, or 



XI. — PRAISE SHOULD BE EXCITED. 97 

reality of conception. — These imaginations are 
always, no doubt, more or less erroneous, as they 
are necessarily founded on human and earthly re- 
semblances alone ; but while we may be quite 
conscious, and properly so, that the imagination of 
a glorious object, as of the exalted Mediator, of 
the heavenly regions, or of their inhabitants, is, of 
necessity, very far from being either adequate or 
correct, it will yet be right and profitable (within 
certain bounds) to cherish and encourage it, as 
producing a joy and thankfulness, which, without 
its aid, could not have been awakened. — There are 
seasons, when to some Christians, it is most 
arduous to do this ; nay, to some it is habitually 
difficult : probably the minds in which an extra- 
vagance or excess of imagination, in regard to 
revealed objects, prevails, are few in comparison 
with the number in which the conception of them 
is faint and languid. 

Cannot I then excite myself into the delightful 
temper of praise and joy, by endeavouring to place 
before my mental eye, the actual appearance and 
aspect of the Son of God on earth, when he came 
in the fulness of his compassion, " to seek and 
save the lost ;" — when he assumed the form of a 
servant, and, through that veil of humiliation, his 
revering followers beheld his spiritual glory, " the 



98 XI. PRAISE SHOULD BE EXCITED. 

glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of 
grace and truth ?" Can I not image him to 
myself, as addressing from the smooth lake the 
more still and breathless multitudes, — or dispensing 
to them miraculous supplies of food in that grassy 
seclusion of the wilderness,— or gloriously trans- 
figured on the mountain before his astonished 
followers? — Cannot I trace, in every look, the 
ineffable union of dignity and tenderness; — and 
view the paralytic arising at his word ; — and the 
blind rejoicing, at his touch, in the first beams of 
day ; — and see in all his works the lively emblems 
of his far higher purpose, to heal the spiritual 
diseases, and conquer the spiritual death of a race 
that is self-destroyed ? 

Can I not find matter of grateful rejoicing even 
when stationed in thought by the brook Cedron, or 
" by the cross of Jesus," and gazing on that meek 
and glorious sufferer, whose passion of unknown 
weight, and unsearchable intenseness, but transient 
and for ever past, there achieved " the joy set 
before him," and " made propitiation for the sins 
of a world !" 

And can I think, without delight, of this Re- 
deemer ascended and interceding, having " led 
captivity captive, and received gifts for men," 
" sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on 






XI.— PRAISE SHOULD BE EXCITED. 99 

high," preparing heavenly mansions for his humblest 
followers ? Can I anticipate, without joyful emo- 
tion, his second coming, to receive these followers 
unto himself? Even now he appears in " the pre- 
sence of God for us," 

" Our Advocate before the throne, 
And our Forerunner there." 

But what will it be to be personally received by 
that sacred and sovereign Deliverer, to whom we 
shall owe all that eternity can impart ? 

If I cannot conceive the near and transporting 
interview with a Benefactor so august, let me think, 
at least, of some joyful messenger, commissioned 
to prepare my exulting, yet trembling spirit, for 
the honour and the joy ! Let me picture, in 
thought, a kind celestial guide, leading me (and 
those dearest to me) through some majestic avenue, 
towards the tnrone of his glory ; a throne not de- 
corated by the feeble devices of art, but formed, 
and surrounded, and approached, by the sublimest 
imagery of nature. Let silent forests and sha- 
dowy mountains be the vista, and radiant clouds 
the canopy, and these, " and all the dread magni- 
ficence of heaven," but mere appendages to the 
majesty of Him, who, thus enthroned amidst the 
noblest wonders of creation, unveils the far nobler 

F 2 



100 XI. — PRAISE SHOULD BE EXCITED. 

symbols and expressions of his own transcendent 
attributes ; — and thence let me hear his mild, 
though awful voice, saying, (as once to his dis- 
ciples on earth,) — " Be of good cheer, it is I !" 

If we could rise to a lively conception of scenes 
like these, would our worship be unaccompanied 
by ardent thankfulness and sacred joy ? 



XII. 



ON THE DUTY OF MAKING EVERY PART OF 
PRIVATE WORSHIP SPECIFIC. 

Prayer is then most likely to degenerate into a 
mere form, when I allow myself to rest in general 
praises, confessions, and supplications. The me- 
mory is so furnished with these, that the employ- 
ment, when thus conducted, may include scarcely 
any exercise of the understanding ; and still less of 
the affections. In public, and social, and even in 
domestic prayer, a much greater degree of gene- 
rality is obviously necessary, than in secret worship; 
but in this last I should be careful to shun it. 
When I acknowledge the goodness of God, let me 
dwell not only on every more occasional and signal 
experience of it ; but, in the ordinary course of my 
life, let me thoughtfully select, as peculiar topics 
of praise, those possessions and privileges, which 



102 XII. PRIVATE WORSHIP 

from my circumstances or temper, I most highly 
value. Do I, for example, especially need the 
counsels and supports of friendship ? I have rea- 
son to make it an especial subject of thanksgiving, 
that I have never been without a true or confiden- 
tial friend. Would the loss of sight be, in my case, 
a peculiarly grievous privation ? Then I should, 
in a peculiar manner, bless the Divine Preserver, 
that this faculty is fully possessed, or has been so 
little impaired. 

Still more should this particularity be the dis- 
tinctive character of secret worship in regard to 
confession; that being the branch of devotion, 
which, when engaged in socially, requires to be 
most general. We cannot, in society, confess our 
own particular sins, as if they were the sins of 
others also ; and even if we could ascertain that 
some present had cause to make precisely the same 
confessions with ourselves, they might often be of 
a nature quite unsuited to publicity. But when I 
" enter into my closet, and shut the door, r> it is of 
great importance that my confessions should be 
specific ; that I should recal and acknowledge my 
most prevailing and most recent offences, so dis- 
tinctly and circumstantially as to bring them 
strongly before the eye of the mind. I should 
notice their particular causes and aggravations ; not 



SHOULD BE SPECIFIC. 103 

yielding to the erroneous notion that such details 
are inconsistent with the majesty of Him whom I 
address. He knoweth all things ; and no detail 
can be superfluous or unfit in his estimation, which 
tends to fix my spirit more deeply and repentingly 
on its own moral defects and diseases, and to evince 
more strongly its desire of being " made whole." 
If, for example, I am conscious of having lately 
given way to an anxious and impatient temper, let 
me not be content with acknowledging generally, 
that I have not " ruled my own spirit," but let me 
confess that I have not set a due guard in that par- 
ticular instance, where provocation or trial was to be 
expected ; or that I have betrayed heat or peevish- 
ness where the youth, or old age, or ignorance, or 
known infimity, or other circumstances of the 
party with whom I had intercourse, should have 
operated as a strong prevention. — If I have in- 
dulged sinful musings and desires, I should call to 
mind, and express, the immediate source of temp- 
tation ; such as injurious society, or pernicious 
books ; (whether casually presented, or more deli- 
berately approached ;) or the want of a right occu- 
pation, or a distaste of what is good, prompting the 
unsatisfied or slothful spirit to resort for enjoyment 
to what is evil. It will be both an exercise and an 



104 XII. — PRIVATE WORSHIP 

incentive of penitence, to trace and to declare these 
motives before God. 

If I have to charge myself with the omission or 
delay of some known duty, or with having per- 
formed it negligently, it is not enough to say in 
secret, what may suffice in public, " I have left 
undone the things which 1 ought to have done ;" 
I should rather acknowledge to the Searcher of 
hearts, — This duty, which conscience urged on me, 
I have deferred, through indolence and self-indul- 
gence ; and in that, which I nominally performed, 
the most difficult or important part was scarcely 
attempted, through false shame and imagined 
incompetence. — Or if I confess, more generally, 
the transgressions of past months and years, or 
even of the whole course of life since I became an 
accountable agent, still let my retrospect and my 
confession be as particular as the case admits. 
There has been, doubtless, one kind of sin which 
has most frequently or successfully assailed me, 
which has been inwrought, as it were, into the 
very texture of my constitution and habit; and 
there may be yet another and another, which the 
review of my own experience will shew to have 
been often prevalent. Now, even in what may be 
called a general confession, these predominant evils 



SHOULD BE SPECIFIC. 105 

should be distinguished and specified. Their being 
so will give a realizing and substantial character tc 
my acknowledgments of guilt, and will deepen th*> 
corresponding sentiments and desires. For it is 
evident, that specific confessions prepare the way 
for specific supplications. If I only confess sin 
generally , though it were with many repetitions of 
the same words, or with many variations which are 
little more than verbal, I do not lay the foundation 
for particular requests. But there is no object 
more important in secret worship, than the seeking 
divine help and strength against each particular 
evil, against each wrong habit or disposition of 
which I am conscious ; and the kind of confession 
which I have now been considering, naturally and 
almost necessarily leads to a similar kind of peti- 
tion ; namely, that the Holy Spirit would succour 
and strengthen me against that particular sin which 
has been explicitly acknowledged, would excite in 
me those particular motives and convictions, by 
which it may be repressed, and impart that especial 
grace, or temper of soul, which may expel or sub- 
due it. Thus, if I confess the unhappy preva- 
lence of discontent, respecting a particular branch 
of the duties which Providence has assigned me, 
or concerning an especial disadvantage attendant on 
my lot in life ; such confession will scarcely fail to 

f 3 



106 XII. —PRIVATE WORSHIP 

be followed by especial prayer, that I may hence- 
forth learn to meet the difficulty, or endure the 
inconvenience referred to, with an unrepining and 
more acquiescent mind ; that I may habitually 
compare this trial with the greater trials of some 
around me ; that I may consider how utterly unen- 
titled I am to ask a dispensation from this, or from 
much severer duties and crosses, on the ground of 
desert ; and that I may more approvingly and 
practically consent to that view of the present life, 
which the scripture gives, as designed to be a state 
of labour and conflict. And so, in every other 
instance, specific confession, if it be heartfelt, will 
be succeeded by specific petition ; and each may, 
in secret, be far more detailed than the hints which 
have now been given ; because it is, of course, not 
the object of these general reflections to enter upon 
individual and actual examples. It should also be 
remembered that prayer, besides its direct efficacy, 
is undoubtedly productive of indirect good ; as 
being the most solemn kind of meditation, the most 
serious review of our strong reasons for gratitude, 
submission, and diligence in " well doing," and of 
the various moral and spiritual evils which we have 
to resist ; involving a resolution practically to foster 
the one class of habits, and to oppose the other. 
But this indirect advantage of devotion must 



SHOULD BE SPECIFIC. 107 

wholly depend on its specific character ; and there- 
fore, it may be added, must chiefly attach to that 
which is secret. 

We can easily conceive of great direct efficacy 
in the briefest and most general prayer, if offered 
with the whole heart ; but in order to those in- 
direct benefits, there must be a distinct recollection 
of the blessings which are to be appreciated, and 
the duties which are to be pursued : above all, 
there must be a clear recognition of the evil tem- 
pers to be resisted, the temptations to be encoun- 
tered, the occasions to be shunned, the passions to 
be moderated or controlled. It is only when thus 
conducted, that secret worship can be in the high- 
est sense a profitable and reasonable service, 
whether we regard its primary aim, or its secon- 
dary tendency. It will then be most remote from 
M vain repetitions," most reverential towards the 
God who heareth prayer, and most beneficial to 
ourselves. 



XIII 



ON AIMING AT LARGE VIEWS OF THE PRE- 
VALENCE OF GOOD IN THE UNIVERSE, AS 
DEDUCIBLE FROM THE REVEALED PERFEC- 
TIONS OF ITS AUTHOR. 

If the Scottish " minstrel" boy, whose genius 
and sensibility have been so attractively delineated 
by Beattie, (himself perhaps partly the model of 
the character he drew,) had been born and bred 
up on a ground-floor, in one of the closest 
" wynds" of the Scottish capital, detained by 
some cruel guardian in perpetual servitude at a 
sedentary trade, surrounded by dismal and repul- 
sive objects, and purposely kept in deep ignorance 
of 



" the boundless store 



Of charms which nature to her votary yields ;" 



XIII. PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 109 

we can suppose what a confused desire and melan- 
choly veneration would have possessed his mind, 
as he saw the sun, and moon, and stars, crossing 
by turns that narrow section of the pure sky, 
which was visible between the dark towering walls 
around him ; — imagine him then, on some happy 
night, suddenly liberated, and conducted before 
dawn to the summit of " Arthur's seat, 1 " there, in 
full freedom, to view the day breaking on the 
whole expanse of the heavens, the Forth magnifi- 
cently widening to the sea, its bordering towns and 
busy navigation, the noble city beneath him, and 
the varied plains and woods, mountains and islands, 
which combine to form that great panorama ; and 
think what a new conception of nature and art, 
what a tide of delight and wonder, would rush into 
his spirit at the sight ! — But is not this, in some 
sort, an emblem, and yet a very imperfect one, of 
the contrast of a Christianas present and approach- 
ing state, as to his view of the spiritual creation ? 
We are here on earth confined in a narrow scene, 
which evil has pervaded : doomed by our fallen 
and mortal condition, to see and converse with 
nothing earthly, but what this bane of happiness 
has, in some measure, touched with its contaminat- 
ing power. There is, indeed, through the great 
mercy of God, a pure and heavenly light of divine 



1 1 XIII. PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 

knowledge, glancing on us from above, if we will 
but raise the mental eye to meet it, amidst all this 
moral gloom, and through the hazy atmosphere 
of ignorance and depravation. But when we shall 
suddenly be borne away, each through some one of 
the thousand dark avenues of death, to a wide and 
free survey of the spiritual world, will not the 
astonishing and transporting contrast be incom- 
parably greater, than that which would delight the 
supposed captive ? 

In the meanwhile, let it not be forgotten, that 
the spiritual light of revelation, which has reached 
our minds, is a much more informing light as to 
the prevailing character of the spiritual universe, 
than the natural light could be to that young 
bondsman, while so immured, as to the character 
and aspect of the material world. Revelation has, 
in some degree, though in a figurative manner, in- 
timated to us the glories and felicities of other 
regions ; but, which is far more important than any 
such intimations, it has made us acquainted with 
the moral perfection of God ; with that sovereign 
and infinite principle of good, which is greater than 
the universe, and which must eternally forbid that 
evil should predominate, or, in any large and 
relative sense, abound. 

It is not to be concealed, that the whole volume 



XIII. — PREVALENCE OF GOOD. Ill 

of revelation, whether as it proclaims the hatred 
of the Supreme Being to sin, or relates his past 
severity against transgressors, or denounces his 
threatenings as to futurity, or, above all, declares 
that amazing sacrifice, by which his judicial in- 
dignation against guilt has been manifested, does 
unfold a far more awful view of the nature of 
moral evil, and the misery of its unprevented re- 
sult, and consequently, of the spiritual state of a 
world which is " become guilty before Gad," than 
was or could have been discovered by the depraved 
reason or conscience of man ; — but then it should 
be ever and attentively recollected, that the very 
same record by which this melancholy state of 
mankind, as partakers of a ruined nature, and 
obnoxious to condemnation, is unfolded, reveals 
likewise, and alone reveals, that infinite moral per- 
fection of the Maker and Preserver of all things, 
from which w r e cannot but infer the greatest pos- 
sible perfection in his works and designs. It 
should be considered that we have no whit more 
revealed evidence, no other or stronger scriptural 
testimony of the deep malignity of sin, and the 
dreadful penalties which will be annexed to it 
where unforsaken, than we have of the infinite 
holiness, goodness, love, and happiness of Him 
that ruleth over all ; whence it is unavoidable to 



112 XIII. PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 

infer an immense,* if not infinite preponderance 
of good, and that for ever, in the universe which 
he rules. Indeed, the terrible fact itself, that sin, 
and its consequent misery, are so repugnant to the 
will and government of God, as to have needed 
and received an infinite atonement, involves the 
conclusion, that sin and misery, even as introduced 
into this minute portion of his works, form a dread- 
ful infraction of the universal order, a tremendous 
anomaly in itself, though permitted for the wisest 
and most benevolent end, as being indispensable 
to the greatest final good. We have, therefore, 
strong reason to be confident, that the entrance of 
sin and misery is a rare exception to the prevailing 
perfection and stability of moral beings. 

Since the Deity, as revealed to us in his word, 
has all natural and moral perfections, that is to 
say, all the attributes which constitute and pro- 
duce happiness, it is inconceivable but that the 
sentient creation, as a whole, must ultimately, 
as to the sum of natural and moral good or hap- 
piness, correspond, in the highest possible degree, 

* Although the word immense is used by some of the best 
writers as controvertible with infinite, yet, as it may well bear 
the lower sense, of that which is unmeasured or not measurable 
by us, (which seems also to be its popular acceptation,) I have 
in the present piece made this use of it, and of its derivatives. 



XIII. — PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 113 

to the character of Him who formed and upholds 
it. The moral evil which exists, is, indeed, a 
mighty mass to us, who see nothing on earth that 
appears to be unmingled with it, or wholly unaf- 
fected by it ; and could we much more clearly 
apprehend its extent, and its depth, in human 
society and human hearts, and estimate its penal 
consequences, it would then be a sight insupport- 
able for our limited minds ; which are always 
chiefly, and sometimes exclusively, affected, by 
what is known, and perceived, and at hand. He 
who sees a volcano showering its ashes on his 
native city, or a cloud of locusts, twenty leagues 
in breadth, darkening the whole sky, and spreading 
famine through the plains, will not easily reflect with 
attention and pleasure on the safety of a thousand 
other cities, or the unravaged fertility and plenty 
of whole regions and continents. But difficult as 
it is, — while we look on a " world that lieth in 
wickedness," and a whole terrestrial creation par- 
ticipating its penal effects, — to expatiate, in fixed 
and rejoicing thought, over a pure and happy 
universe : yet faith and reason may rest assured, 
from the revealed character of God, that the sum 
of evil can be relatively but minute, being certainly 
the least possible : — and should nay one, professing 
a steadfast belief in the moral perfection of the 






114 XXII. PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 

Deity, assume (in the total absence of scriptural 
proofs or intimations) that this least possible sum of 
evil in the universe may yet be great, relatively to 
the amount of good, the assumption would not 
only be devoid of all ground of credibility, but 
would involve (as I apprehend) a gloomy specu- 
lative profaneness. 

Let us then aim at the widest views ; for they 
are the most effectual to cheer and sustain the 
meditative mind. Unless we habitually seek to 
measure the superabundance of good, almost by 
the infinitude of its Author ; we are in danger of 
being " shaken and troubled," by the apparent 
magnitude and probable effects of evil. But if we 
could steadfastly adopt and maintain this just view 
of things, evil would become a sort of vanishing 
quantity. For even though the multitude of intel- 
ligent or sentient beings should be not infinite, 
which, understanding that word in the sense of 
ever-growing, or increasing without end, we can be 
no way certain that it will not be;* and even 
though there were several races of beings, beside 
our own, subjected to moral and natural evil, 
which, however, we can have no right to presume 
that there are, — yet might the proportion of evil to 

* See Note D, at the end of the volume. 



XIII.— PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 115 

good, in the whole of the divine works, be but as 
a rivulet to the ocean. 

A Christian, called as he evidently is, by his 
Divine Master's example and command, to reflect 
deeply on the evil that is in the world, in order to 
shun its influence, to escape its effects, and to aim 
at the diminution of its prevalence, will be liable 
to receive too gloomy and disheartening an impres- 
sion from the view of its wide dominion, unless 
he can launch forth into contemplations of a con- 
trary character, which are far more wide and 
vast. 

Should one of our female philanthropists, from 
a misjudging devotedness to her object, instead of 
visiting the prison and the hospital, bind herself to 
constant residence within one of these, as nuns 
within their convents, it is hardly to be doubted, 
that a more oppressive sense of human wretched- 
ness and calamity would weigh upon her mind. 
It would be more and more necessary to correct 
this feeling, by a frequent effort of reflection on 
the great excess of health and freedom, over dis- 
ease and bondage, which is found in the whole 
city, or the whole island. 

And we who, at the dictate of revelation, con- 
template the world in which we dwell as a great 
infirmary and house of discipline, and one where 



116 XIII. PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 

the fatal cases exceed the happy cures have, surely, 
need to counteract the feeling which this situation 
prompts, by all the resources which the same reve- 
lation yields. It is probable, that superior and 
happy beings regard this abode into which evil has 
entered, and that abode where sin is punished, as 
we should regard a solitary hospital and prison in 
a vast and well-ordered and flourishing capital ; 
though indeed, with this most joyful difference, 
that in the other countless mansions which they 
visit or behold, throughout the immeasurable " city 
of the living God," they witness, we trust, not a 
partial, but a total exclusion of moral evil. 

The astronomy which has developed the incal- 
culable magnitude of creation, is, in this view, 
auxiliary to our faith ; for, in proportion as our 
knowledge is enlarged, as to the actual vastness 
of the divine works, a correspondence in facts (or 
in the existing universe) is discovered, so far, with 
the inferences we would draw from the revelation 
of the divine character. 

Had the stars been neither mentioned in scrip- 
ture, nor visible in nature, still, from the moral 
perfection of Deity, which is distinctly revealed, 
we should be led to believe in an immense pre- 
dominance of happiness somewhere ; — but, seeing a 
host of heavenly worlds, and learning that their 



XIII. — PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 117 

number is beyond all computing, we make one 
grand advance towards our conclusion, on the 
ground of ocular and mathematical proof. Faith 
is relieved, as it were, from its work of creation. 
The mighty structure of innumerable worlds is 
before us. Divine wisdom and power have actually 
done what we otherwise should only have judged 
they would do; nay, the boldest conception of 
faith, or of fancy, would never have gone a ten 
thousandth part so far as the fact carries us. 
Here is ample room, then, in the actual works of 
the Deity, for a preponderance of happiness which 
may well be called, to our feeble apprehension, 
infinite. The Deity is "just" and " holy,"— 
" good" and " gracious," )^ea, — " God is love:" 
while we believe this, (and be it remembered, that 
when we cease to do so, all belief in revelation 
falls,) it is impossible not to believe that such an 
immense preponderance of happiness is both pro- 
duced and secured. 

This vastness of the works of God also evidently 
magnifies the love and condescension of their 
Author, in interposing, even by his providence, 
much more by the astonishing method of redemp- 
tion, on behalf of our fallen world ; which, had it 
been annihilated in its state of moral ruin, might 
have been, to other beings, but as a meteor gliding 



118 XIII. PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 

into darkness, from amidst the multitudinous gran- 
deur of the heavens. And when we consider the 
ultimate, and even the present efficacy of that 
marvellous interposition, towards the recovery and 
salvation of mankind, as far more extensive than 
some persons of an austere or excluding spirit can 
allow themselves to hope, we dissipate, in part, the 
gloom even of this worlds prospect. 

It is not, however, this world's state or prospect 
to which we should confine ourselves, or on which 
we have now sought to dwell. It is a scene im- 
mensely greater ; and to that greater, that universal 
view, it is the proper tendency of every devotional 
engagement to exalt us. For whenever we pray we 
have always for the grand object of thought, (if 
our thoughts be truly elevated and expanded to- 
wards the perfections of Him whom we worship,) 
an infinitely good and infinitely happy Creator ; — 
why not also, as a concurring or proximate object 
of thought, that which is necessarily to be inferred 
from the idea of such a Creator, the utmost pos- 
sible sum of goodness and felicity in his creation ? 
We should be deeply grateful for that revelation 
which assures us of the moral perfection of God :* 
without it, although our knowledge of sin and its 

* See Note E, at the end of the volume. 






XIII. PREVALENCE OF GOOD, 119 

deserts would have far less of painful distinctness, 
we should be left in a dreadful uncertainty as to 
the extent and duration of evil. We cc-Tild not 
disprove that it prevails in all parts of the creation, 
and that it will every where and continually aug- 
ment. We should, indeed, know much less of 
(what the human mind has so great a repugnance 
to admit) the malignant essence of evil, its contra- 
riety to the divine nature and will ; but therefore, 
(on that very account,) we could not know that its 
dominion must be limited, and that good must im- 
mensely preponderate. 

Deists may offer strong arguments in proof of a 
certain kind of divine perfection ; but there is no 
ground to believe that they who altogether reject 
revelation have real confidence in the moral attri- 
butes of Deity ; and it follows, that they must 
remain either in fearful doubt, or stupid thought- 
lessness, as to the ultimate issues of good and 
ill. 

A Christian, on the contrary, may confidently 
regard all the evil, which is, or can be permitted by 
a God of holiness and love, as indispensably con- 
ducive to the production and maintenance of a good 
that will incomparably overbalance it. He sees in 
the works of Christ, in his perfect rectitude, purity, 



120 XIII.— PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 

and benevolence, an " image" of the perfections 
" of the invisible God ;" he has been taught by 
the words of Christ, that the divine goodness so 
transcends that of all creatures, as to be in fact the 
only essential goodness ; " None is good, save one, 
that is God."' 

From these assurances of Him, who is one with 
the Father, and who attested his words by miracles 
of goodness, the Christian may, I think, without 
presumption conclude, that if the universe, viewed 
by prescience in its whole extent and duration, had 
not been foreseen to contain an incomparable ex- 
cess of good, the eternally good and blessed God 
would never have become a Creator. 

We know that the follower of Christ cannot, in 
one sense, be too much occupied with the existence 
of moral evil ; he cannot too strenuously oppose 
and conflict against it, in himself and others, nor 
can he have any spring of action so truly identical 
with that which reigned in the soul of his Saviour, 
as a pure desire of peventing or counteracting its 
diversified effects. Yet, in contemplation, it is his 
duty often to " turn aside," and see a far greater 
sight ; to anticipate the period when evil shall not 
only be extinguished in himself, but shall for ever 
cease to be prominent, perhaps even to be percep- 



XIII. PREVALENCE OF GOOD. 121 

tible, in his view of the creation ; and to lose all 
his present partial views in that " far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight" of felicity, which will be 
as exhaustless as the perfection of Him that 
« fflleth all in all." 



XIV, 



ON TORPOR OF MIND WITH REGARD TO 
SPIRITUAL OBJECTS AND INTERESTS. 

When is it most necessary for me to meditate 
on things spiritual ? Precisely when I have least 
inclination and ability to do so ; when I take up 
the scriptures, or a book of piety, with almost 
as little zest as I should a treatise of mensuration ; 
when I seem unimpressible by what is exalted, or 
remote, or refined ; when the mind, like what has 
been named the u sensitive soul" in the lower 
creatures, is little better than the mere instrument 
of the animal, instead of the animal powers and 
organs being the mere instruments of the spirit. 
This, to one that has known and felt any thing 
of its opposite, is a humiliating and comfortless 



XIV. — SPIRITUAL OBJECTS. 123 

state of the understanding and affections. What 
can account for it, but that prone and servile ten- 
dency of the human soul, induced by its fall from 
original rectitude ? For, by the supposition, this 
is not a state of ignorance, nor is it, properly 
speaking, a state of unbelief , as to the reality and 
excellency of spiritual objects ; since, were it either 
of these, there could be in it no conscious unhap- 
piness or degradation. It is, in fact, far otherwise. 
The immensity and majesty of nature have been 
familiar to my eye, and the glorious secrets which 
the universe must have to unfold, have been con- 
templated with awful curiosity. The proofs of its 
incomprehensible Author's being and perfections, 
have approved themselves to my reason and my 
conscience ; the vastness and condescension of his 
revealed love have overwhelmed my thoughts ; the 
possible discoveries of an endless life have oppressed 
me with their undisclosed multitude and grandeur, 
and this little theatre of sense has seemed to shrink 
into nothing. — And am I yet now compelled to say, 
with an application of the phrase sadly contrary to 
the connexion in which an apostle used it, " None 
of these things move me ?" How contrary this to 
the genuine uncontrolled bias of that new and 
heavenly nature, which the scripture declares to 
belong to the children of God ? — I am like a travel- 

g 2 



124 XIV. — TORPOR AS TO 

ler who has passed along the Appenine ridge, some- 
times gazing on the far-empurpled sky, now on the 
vast masses of southern foliage below, and a bright 
river dividing the extended valley, then on the calm 
lake or boundless ocean stretching beyond, and who 
exclaims, with a glowing heart, How delightful, 
how magnificent ! but soon afterwards finds himself 
enveloped in the chill vapour of the mal-aria, and 
looks in vain through the noxious mist, for all the 
wonders and glories of that splendid prospect. 
There is danger for the traveller, not only from 
the unwholesome air through which he passes, but 
lest, forgetting the refined enjoyments of other 
hours, he should seek amends in sensuality, for the 
lost pleasures of contemplation. But there is, in 
one view, more danger for me ; because, in his 
case, the concealment of the objects does not take 
away or impair the conviction of their reality. But 
in mine, there is a sort of doubting, though not 
disbelief, induced by the want of mental percep- 
tion. Suspended apprehension, respecting spiritual 
or " unseen" objects, is vtry much allied to 
doubt.* 

If it be possible for a reasoner, by dint of sub- 
tleties, to bring into question, as the estimable but 

* At least, they are closely allied in practical effect. 



SPIRITUAL OBJECTS. 125 

paradoxical Bishop Berkeley did, the existence of 
6i the things which are seen," how much more 
easy, through a cessation of the mind's acting upon 
objects of mere intellect, to lose all realizing sense 
of " the things which are not seen." There may 
be, and is, no actual, at least, no abiding disbelief 
in either case. Bishop Berkeley, it is presumed, 
could only in a very occasional state of high 
abstraction from the influence of material things, 
seriously feel as if that opinion were credible, 
which his dialogues maintain ; and it is only in the 
state exactly opposite, that of absorption in mate- 
rial things, (when the appetites and varying states 
of the body, or thoughts only terminating on what 
is earthly, quell and suppress the higher action of 
the soul,) that we are dead to the impression of 
what is spiritual. But from the lamentable readi- 
ness with which, in our degenerate condition, we 
take impressions, and even laws from sense, this 
last is a common and natural state, while that of 
Berkeley, if he really doubted, or imagined himself 
to doubt the existence of matter, has been, pro- 
bably, unparalleled in any sane mind. If I con- 
clude, that he never could be under this illusion, it 
equally serves the present purpose to suppose, that 
some student of his system, whose sanity need not 
be contended for, sometimes really was so. There 



126 XIV. — TORPOR AS TO 

is, we too well know, a contrary unsoundness of 
mind, which, though it excites no wonder and no 
ridicule in a sensual world, is in truth infinitely 
more to be deplored ; that of feeling as if things 
spiritual had no existence. The herds of Babylon 
might naturally soon cease to wonder, if they ever 
wondered at all, that its sovereign should take 
" his portion with the beasts in the grass of the 
earth, and have his body wet with the dew of 
heaven ; "* but an angel, ever blissfully awake to 
the realities and glories of the spiritual universe, 
probably regards the " brutish persons" who are 
dead to these, with more astonishment and com- 
passion than I should regard that visionary, who 
might feel as if the material world were non- 
existent. No doubt these remarks apply most 
strongly to such as are manifestly not " renewed 
in the spirit of their mind," who are altogether 
what the Apostle Paul denominates natural or 
animal men ; but still they apply, in a degree, to 
that temporary and partial insensibility, which it is 
presumed every Christian must confess. 

And what, as a means, (in the hope of divine 
aid and influence,) is likely to remove this ? 

If the deluded follower of Berkeley had arrived 

* Daniel, iv. 



SPIRITUAL OBJECTS. 127 

at such a point of self-deception in his study, as to 
feel some repugnance to eat or walk, or to have 
little fear of a precipice, from imagining these acts 
and objects unreal, what would be the fittest re- 
medy for him ? Not, I conceive, to take a general 
and distant view of nature, even in its most 
striking scenes, — but to lift some hard and massive 
body, to make proof of some highly pungent taste, 
to try the point of some sharp instrument. 

Have we any resources similar to these, when 
we would seek to revive the deadened apprehension 
of spiritual things ? They, it is evident, cannot be 
corporeally tasted, touched, or handled. But there 
are two ways of mentally viewing them, which have 
some analogy to the two ways of being conversant 
with material things, that were just mentioned. — I 
may attempt to contemplate the most sublime, illi- 
mitable, and remote of spiritual objects, to medi- 
tate on the nature and operation of Deity, on the 
person of Christ, or on the day of judgment, on 
" the eternal states of all the dead ;" and all these 
things, momentous as they are, may (without being 
disbelieved) appear, in the carnalized state of 
mind to which we refer, as immense indeed, but 
shadowy and almost doubtful visions, which have 
no power to excite emotion. — Let me rather try, 
therefore, without looking abroad into the vast 



128 XIV. TORPOR AS TO 

field of spiritual existence, to fix on a single point, 
and that the nearest. Let me return, with Des- 
cartes and Fenelon, to the first point of spiritual 
knowledge, — " I think, therefore, I am ,•" not for 
their purpose, of deducing thence the proof of an 
infinite and perfect Being, but for the purpose of 
intently recognizing my own consciousness. This 
consciousness is one. It is not divisible or dis- 
soluble, like the material organs which it actuates, 
and which will so soon be dissolved. When a few 
years have passed, the whole frame will sink into 
irremediable helplessness ; the last pulses will beat, 
the last respiration cease, the particles so ponder- 
fully combined into organic life will be separated. 
Even they, however, will be only separated, not 
destroyed. " We have no reason to believe, (say 
the philosophers,) that matter perishes, but only 
that it changes its form." " There is no evidence 
of the destruction of any thing since the universe 
was formed." But my consciousness, which is not 
composed of parts, cannot be separated. And if 
matter which has parts, which is infinitely divisible, 
which is actually divided, be not destroyed, how 
much less that consciousness, which is one and 
indivisible. To annihilate, for aught we know, is 
as much a divine and incommunicable prerogative, 
as to create ; nor have we the slightest evidence, 



SPIRITUAL OBJECTS. 129 

direct or presumptive, that this prerogative has 
been exercised on one material particle, or one 
spiritual essence. When this frame is dissolved, 
therefore, as it soon inevitably must, my conscious- 
ness will still subsist. I, who think, shall be ; — 
shall be somewhere ; shall reflect ; shall feel ; shall 
be either happy or zmhappy. — It is a striking 
thought of a foreign writer, that even atheism 
cannot demonstrate to itself, on its own principles, 
that there will be no future and ever-during misery. 
As little, surely, can that vague and Epicurean 
sort of deism, which forgets God, or asks itself 
secretly, Does God indeed see and regard?* — 
which is yet the virtual state of the Christian's 
mind, whenever its actings are sinful. Even could 
this questioning be unhappily converted into a well- 
founded affirmation ; could it be shewn that the 
proofs of God's holy providence are fallacious; 
this dreadful argument would not at all involve the 
consequence that the spirit is destroyed, while the 
parts of the body are only dissolved and changed ; 
or that it has parts which may also be dissolved ; 
or that its consciousness, in a new state, will not 
be unhappy. 

The resort to this kind of reasoning does not 

* Psalm xciv. 7» Ezekiel viii. 12. 
G 3 



130 XIV. — TORPOR AS TO 

imply either distrust or depreciation of that testi- 
mony which the gospel yields both to the character 
of the Deity and " the life of the world to come :" 
it is intended for those moments when external 
reasons of belief and expectation, however power- 
ful, do not move the mind ; intended likewise, by 
impressing that awful prospect of an unknown fu- 
turity of being, to endear the assurances and offers 
of revelation. Whatever depraved or listless torpor 
lulls my spirit now, that surprising instant will 
arrive, surely and soon, that instant of miraculous 
change, the first of a new mode of being. Can I 
easily revert in recollection to the hours of early 
childhood, when my present mode of being was 
new ; and is it much less easy to anticipate the 
latest moments of this, the awful verge of another ? 
—Am I not, meanwhile, consciously amenable to 
an inward law ? Is not the sense of moral good 
and evil, of consequent weal or woe, more indelible 
from my spirit than words imprinted " with an 
iron graver in the rock," or on crystal " with the 
point of a diamond ?" What is it but the never- 
dying echo of the eternal voice ? These things 
are fully as sure as any thing material and exter- 
nal, any object of sensation, and incomparably 
more intimate and unchangeable. But if I be 
truly awakened to these, if I forethink this ap- 



SPIRITUAL OBJECTS. 131 

preaching entrance into an untried state of con- 
sciousness, which must be either holy or depraved, 
which must excite unmeasured joy or unutterable 
disappointment, — can I, under such expectations, 
remain indifferent to the message of salvation, to 
the deeds and words of an Almighty Redeemer ? 
Thus, then, let me seek to arouse the dormant 
perception of spiritual realities, commencing the 
survey at home, contemplating the mysterious im- 
mortal inmate of my bosom. Hence let me ascend 
towards the throne of Him who is hid from mortal 
sight ; hence fly to the cross of Him who stooped 
to mortal sorrows. But, oh, Thou Spirit of Holi- 
ness, who succourest mortal weakness, do Thou 
communicate to my soul the vividness of solemn 
thought, the depth of grateful sentiment, and 
cause me by thy power, which is alone sufficient, 
to " abound in hope." 



XV. 



ON THE ENCOURAGEMENT WHICH THE INTEtt- 
CESSION OF CHRIST AFFORDS TO PRAYER. 

When I consider how defective, how mean, and 
how defiled are the most solemn of my devotional 
services, I might well despond of their being any 
way acceptable to the Deity, or procuring for me 
any communication of his mercy and favour, were 
it not for the peculiar way of access and accep- 
tance revealed. Not only my previous character 
of an offender, but the offences contained in acts 
of worship, might suffice to defeat my hopes. If 
a petitioner were to approach the most exalted, 
benevolent, and venerable of men, without mani- 
festing any due impression of his dignity and ex- 
cellence ; if he were visibly and audibly to manifest 
the contrary, by unseemly gestures, and by wander- 



XV. — INTERCESSION OF CHRIST. 133 

ing, incoherent, and even disgraceful expressions^ 
mingling in every part of his professed supplica- 
tion ; if that supplication, though not a precom- 
posed form, were evidently, in many of its parts, 
mechanical; a sort of half- conscious exercise of 
memory, combined with vague desire ; while the 
mind was chiefly occupied with the irrelevant and 
often base imaginations, which seemed interposed 
as insults to the majesty and patience of the 
hearer ; — what should we augur of the reception 
and success of such a suppliant ? Would not the 
servants or the friends of the personage addressed, 
be ready to remove the intruder, unanswered ex- 
cept by reproof? — But my addresses, to One who 
is ineffably more august and venerable than any 
created being, have often corresponded to this 
description, and have always, more or less, par- 
taken of this character. For thoughts and feelings, 
not vocally expressed, are quite as substantial and 
apparent before the Omniscient God, as those 
which are uttered ; they form, undeniably, as real 
a part of the action of the mind, during any act of 
worship, as the confessions, petitions, or adora- 
tions, verbally pronounced. What then would be 
the texture and series of my prayers, if all the 
ideas and emotions which arise during their con- 
tinuance, could be submitted to the view of others, 



134 XV. INTERCESSION OF CHRIST. 

and my own, as they unquestionably are to the 
view of Him " that searcheth the hearts ?" Would 
not the irreverent confusion and impious intermix- 
ture, of things sacred and profane, solemn and 
trivial, spiritual and carnal, be enough to mor- 
tify the pride of a Stoic, and confound the self- 
righteousness of a Pharisee ? If such a copy of 
the acts of my soul, during secret devotion, could 
be faithfully noted down, and set before me, it 
would certainly confirm, in a most humbling man- 
ner, my conviction of spiritual weakness and de- 
pravity, and might justly induce despair of such 
services being well-pleasing to God ; were it not 
for the consoling and cheering assurance that Jesus 
** ever liveth to make intercession for us:" that 
" we have not an High Priest which cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but 
was in all points tempted like as we are, though 
without sin." It is in this belief alone, that I can 
or ought, to " come boldly unto the throne of 
grace :" but with this belief, notwithstanding the 
experience and the foresight of exceeding imper- 
fection and unworthiness in my offerings, I may 
" have access with confidence." How should it 
endear this great High Priest and Advocate, to 
think of Him as pleading for the gracious accep- 
tance of my praises, which, when compared with 



XV. INTERCESSION OF CHRIST. 135 

the claims of the divine grace and majesty, have 
been so negligent and formal ; of my thanksgiv- 
ings, which have been so heartless ; of my confes- 
sions, which have been so seldom prompted by a 
deep and tender contrition ; of my entreaties, 
whose fervency has borne no proportion to the 
magnitude of the good besought, or of the evils 
deprecated ; of my whole worship, which, as be- 
fore described, has been often a shameful inter- 
mingling of incongruous and degrading thoughts 
with those of piety ! Is it presumptuous to hope 
and believe, that the Divine Mediator intercedes 
for those who are conscious of defects so vital, and 
offences so flagrant, in their approaches to Him 
who " knoweth the secrets of the heart ?.V I trust 
not ; because many of the most devoted worship^ 
pers have confessed and deplored similar defects 
and offences in their attempts to wait on God ; 
and though I cannot suppose, that in these eminent 
Christians they have been nearly so habitual or so 
great, I am not warranted in desponding of my 
prayers as insincere and ineffectual, on account of 
the deeper degrees of evil which I may believe to 
pervade them. The compassionate aid and inter^ 
cession of Christ, when on earth, were not with- 
drawn from those disciples with whom he had 
frequent reason to expostulate on account of the 



136 XV. — INTERCESSION OF CHRIST. 

weakness and littleness of their faith ; and who, in 
a season peculiarly adapted to excite their feel- 
ings, drew from him, by their heaviness and stupor, 
the affecting rebuke, " What, could ye not watch 
with me one hour ?" These failures of their faith 
and vigilance did not prevent his leaving with 
them that animating promise, " Lo, I am with 
you always, even to the end of the world." 

At the same time, the hope that my imperfect 
and sinful offerings are accepted through this all- 
powerful and gracious Intercessor, can never, 
surely, admit so fatal a perversion, as to become a 
plea or refuge for indifference in that sacred em- 
ploy ; to place me at ease in the indulgence of 
wandering thoughts, in a supine or ungoverned 
state of the faculties and affections. Let me 
solemnly remember, that, in every act of worship, 
whether public or secret, there is only so much of 
prayer as the " understanding and the spirit" 
concur in. It is impossible to suppose, that our 
exalted Saviour, who expressly declares, — ; * they 
that worship God, must worship him in spirit and 
in truth," should intercede for the acceptance of 
those parts of our prayers, in which, though the 
lips utter them, the mind is not engaged ; or in 
which, although the memory and the reason, by a 
confused kind of co-operation, combine to produce 



XV. — INTERCESSION OF CHRIST. 137 

them extemporaneously, the desires and affections 
are wholly unconcerned. 

The efficacy of prayer must be proportioned to 
the real amount of sincere and true devotion, 
which enters into any exercise of worship. If a 
mass of gold or silver ore be sent to the refiner, he 
will value, not the amount or variety of hetero- 
geneous matter, but the amount of pure metal 
which is found in it. He may accept and prize 
it, notwithstanding the alloys and worthless sub- 
stances with which it is debased, but it can be 
accepted only at the worth of the separated bul- 
lion. It is not meant to intimate, by this com- 
parison, that our prayers, were they ten times more 
unalloyed than those of fallen creatures can be, 
would possess any meritorious value : the mind 
and will, the ability and inclination, for these, as 
for all other services, are themselves the gift of 
God. But he has chosen to connect his blessings 
with prayer, and encourages me to hope, that, 
through the intercession of the " One Mediator ," 
he will accept such prayers even as mine. Though 
they be, however, notwithstanding their alloys 
and defilements, accepted, yet the result of them, 
the blessings to be procured by them, can only 
have relation to the sum and the intenseness of 
real devotion. The hope that my real prayers 



138 XV, INTERCESSION OF CHRIST. 

are presented, and made availing, by so glorious 
an advocate, should confer, in my estimation, an 
immense importance on the privilege of worship, 
and should make me incomparably more solicitous, 
that my prayers may be real, and that " out 
of the abundance of the heart, the mouth may 
speak. 1 " 






XVI. 



ON THE INFLUENCE OF SLOTHFUL AND SEN- 
SUAL INCLINATIONS. 

How disgraceful and wretched a subjugation is 
that of the mind to bodily appetites and propen- 
sities ! How low and narrow are our ideas of 
happiness become, while we act or feel as if mere 
sensual ease, or animal indulgence, could supply 
it ! When the spirit is " brought into subjection" 
to the body, what is its utmost bliss but that of a 
half-slumbering or half-besotted slave ? And what 
captivity so ignominious as to be the slave of its 
own indolent, weak, disorderly vassal? What 
w servant of servants" can wear a yoke more ab- 
ject ? Whenever I am conscious of the downward 
tendency to this worst of servitudes, oppressed at 
once by the thought of its sinfulness and its degra- 



140 XVI. — SLOTHFUL AND 

dation, urgent, indeed, is the necessity of applying 
to the " Father of spirits" for strength to shake 
off the bondage of corruption. Have I forgotten 
that the blessedness of Him, who is independently 
and supremely happy, must be purely spiritual, 
and that we can conceive no remission of blissful 
activity in the Eternal Mind ? What kind of en- 
joyment, then, should creatures, originally made 
" after his likeness," endowed with spiritual facul- 
ties and desires, pursue as the best, the only perfect 
and sufficient, other than that which constitutes 
the happiness of their Creator ? 

Never, when the most ensnared in slothfulness 
and sensuality of heart, let me consent to suspend 
devotion ; or fail to implore, with an early and 
strenuous resistance to the depraved bias of my 
mind, the renewal of that " right spirit," which 
alone is " life and peace ;" never let the inebriating 
or stupifying power of sense over-bear my convic- 
tion, that, under this dominion, the very life of 
life, the very element of heaven would be extin- 
guished : never let me cease to solicit a new and 
deeper impression of those real joys, which arise 
from nearness and similitude and love to Thee, 
" the Source and Centre of all minds." He who 
made and upholds all things, possesses within him- 
self all the stores of happiness which are or can be 






SENSUAL INCLINATIONS. 141 

dispensed to his creation. His " loving-kindness is 
better than life." What comparison can be made 
between pleasures in which reptiles partake, (parr 
take without the cares or pains that are connected 
with them in human experience,) and those which 
flow immediately to the rational and immortal soul, 
from the infinite Spirit ! 

Even if, when I pray for these sublime enjoy- 
ments, they be not soon or amply communicated, 
yet ought the very hope, or even desire, of such 
exalted benefits, to be more cherished and more 
acceptable than the fullest possession of mere bodily 
delights. There must be more real satisfaction 
of the mind in perseveringly aspiring to the noblest, 
the only substantial and enduring good, although 
one were not to be indulged, in the present state, 
with any assurance or consciousness of its attain- 
ment, than in the full acquisition of pleasures which 
we know to be insufficient, mean, and transitory. 

How forcibly does the energetic Baxter urge this 
preference of the all-originating good, and a sacred 
scorn of all that would compete with it ; — " Where 
do you think, in reason, that all the streams of 
goodness do finally empty themselves ? Is it not 
in God, from whom, by secret springs, they 
finally proceed ? Where else do all the lines 
of goodness concentre? Are not all the sparks 



142 XVI. SLOTHFUL AND 

contained in this fire, and all the drops in this 
ocean ? Surely the time was, when there was 
nothing besides God, and then all good was in Him. 
And even now the creature's essence and existence 
is secondary, derived, contingent, improper, in 
comparison of his, who is, and was, and is to come, 
whose name alone is called / am. What do thine 
eyes see, or thy heart conceive desirable, which is 
not there to be had ? Sin, indeed, there is none ; 
but darest thou call that good ? Worldly delights 
there are none, for they are good but for the pre- 
sent necessity, and please but the brutish senses.— 
Do you fear losing or parting with any thing you 
now enjoy ? What ? Do you fear you shall want 
when you come to heaven f Shall you want the 
drops when you have the ocean ? or the light of the 
candle, when you have the sun ? or the shallow 
creature, when you have the perfect Creator ?"* 

It is while these powerful considerations least 
affect me, while I am most prone to sink under the 
influence of that " carnal mind which is death, 
and my soul, immersed, and, as it were, half im- 
bruted in earth and sense, knows not how to taste, 
and scarcely how to contemplate, a spiritual and 
real blessedness, that I have surely the most press- 

* Saints' Rest, Part I. Chap. VI. § 9. 






SENSUAL INCLINATIONS. 143 

ing occasion to ask the heavenly gift, of better 
thoughts and nobler affections, from the Fountain 
of spiritual light and life. He can enkindle within 
me a divine ambition, — can cause my spirit to 
" thirst for Himself, even for the living God," — 
for " the fulness of joy which is in his presence," 
— for that perfect righteousness which is the essence 
of his own felicity. To Him, therefore, dull and 
insensible, or earthly and sensual, as I now am, to 
Him let me approach, with the deep feeling how 
essential to my happiness is his enlivening grace ; 
and let this be the tenour of my earnest petition, — 
" My soul cleaveth unto the dust ; quicken Thou 
me according to thy word !" 



XVII. 



ON THAT STRONG PRE-OCCUPATION OF THE 
MIND WHICH UNFITS IT FOR DEVOTION ; AND 
ON THE MEANS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 

There are some trials which press on us hea- 
vily, and yet do not, like many other occurrences, 
tend to disincline or disqualify us for prayer ; on 
the contrary, though they give a special direction 
and cast to our petitions, they promote solemnity 
and fervour, and lead to that greater abstraction 
and composure which are the effect of increased 
seriousness. These are chiefly that kind of afflic- 
tive circumstances in which we are in a great 
measure passive; where the event has come, or 
must come, immediately from the hand of God ; or 
where we are not much called to deliberate or to 
act. Such is the death or sickness of friends ; 
such the ills or disappointments which they or we 



OF THE MIND. 145 

may suffer from causes quite uncontrollable by us ; 
— such was the situation of Paul and his fellow 
voyagers, in the Alexandrian vessel, after they had 
been compelled to " let her drive," had cast out 
her equipments, and, having no further power to 
direct her course, were u driven up and down in 
Adria;" — such that of the aged Jacob, when he 
was constrained to permit his Benjamin to be taken 
away to Egypt, and could only say, after an affect- 
ing prayer for his return, " If I be bereaved of 
my children, I am bereaved !" Who can doubt, 
that, when the youth was out of sight, when the 
melancholy train, which he followed with a father's 
eye to the summit of some neighbouring mountain, 
had disappeared, he then offered more earnest and 
fixed and enlarged supplications for the safety of 
his beloved child ? Prayer was then his only 
duty, his only office of kindness, or resource of 
affection. 

There is another class of trials, which, though 
they ought to have the same influence, and in the 
most pious minds certainly have so, yet have at the 
same time a contrary or disturbing force. It is 
that diversified class in which we are compelled to 
be active ; more especially those where speedy 
action is, or seems to be, required ; as where, for 
example, ourselves, or those dear to us, are in- 

H 



146 XVII.— PRE-OCCUPATION 

volved in embarrassing or hazardous circumstances, 
and must be extricated by means which require 
consideration and effort. Situations of this kind 
also are recorded in the lives of both the scripture 
characters referred to ; as when the patriarch heard 
of the approach of his offended brother with an 
armed band, and was in consequence " greatly- 
afraid and distressed," but obliged to decide on 
measures for his own and his family's safety ; and 
as when the apostle, at Damascus, became ac- 
quainted with a conspiracy against his life, which 
required him to adopt means of concealment or 
escape. 

These are occasions, (and there are many, far 
less pressing and important, that yet partake of 
the same character,) which, while they strongly 
prompt a good man to look up to God for strength 
and guidance, do yet, by the evident duty of 
action which they impose, tend to divert the mind 
from a calm and undivided exercise of devotion. 
At least they so operate on some minds ; and not 
so much on powerful, ardent, enterprising minds, 
formed for action, and which therefore we might 
suppose restless from impatience to begin it, as on 
those of an opposite complexion, to which decision 
and action are most arduous, and which are there- 
fore most perturbed by the near prospect of such 



Otf THE MIND. 147 

duties. These will undoubtedly attempt prayer, 
perhaps, in many more words than the apostle or 
the patriarch, on similar occasions, uttered ; but 
their prayer will often be extremely distracted. 
Comparative brevity is suited to such occasions. 
Diffusiveness and prolixity are ill-timed : indeed, 
prayer can never be computed by the sum of words 
and minutes, but by the amount of faith, reverence, 
and desire. It is when these qualities seem lost 
amidst the confusion or perplexity of the wor- 
shipper, that the very essence of the duty appears 
wanting ; although, where this proceeds from mere 
infirmity, it will be mercifully regarded by Him 
who " knoweth our frame." 

But it were well if only such exigencies could 
produce such effects. There are other feelings and 
situations, hardly deserving, in comparison, the 
name of trials, which, yet not seldom, excite in 
minds of the same temperament as high a degree 
of distraction, nay, sometimes, a yet higher ; be- 
cause, being in themselves less urgent or critical, 
the need of divine aid is not so deeply felt, while 
the counteractive or alienating impulses of thought 
are almost equally strong. Thus, in deciding on 
some new occupation or connexion for ourselves or 
others, or meditating some arrangement in which 
the tempers and views of several persons are to be 

h 2 



148 XVII. PRE-OCCUPATION 

consulted, the affairs in question may scarcely come 
under the grave denomination of " trials," and yet 
they may so possess the mind, as exceedingly to 
discompose it in sacred duties. Or, let some de- 
sign engage us, which may be quite practicable, 
wholly blameless, or even praiseworthy, — such as 
a scheme of personal advantage, undertaken in the 
most proper manner, and with the most upright 
aim ; or a plan of administering charity or instruc- 
tion, or an exercise of thought in some scientific or 
literary attempt, or a wish of publicly advocating 
some benevolent institution ; none of these can be 
called trials, in the religious acceptation of the 
word, for they may be pleasurable rather than 
painful ; nor can they, in themselves, be deemed 
temptations, for the supposed employments are 
" lawful and right ;" and yet they may very rea- 
dily become temptations ; for they may so engross 
and haunt the mind, as to incapacitate it for the 
right performance of duty to the Supreme Being. 

It is far easier in this, as in many other cases, to 
feel, and understand, and analyze the evil, than it 
is to suggest (much more to use) effectual remedies. 
The poet tells me, that, 

" A soul immortal 

Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd, 
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, 
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, 
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly." 



OF THE MIND. 149 

Nor can the calmest reason account this figure 
extravagant, in representing the disproportion 
between our little and momentary interests here, 
and the nature and prospects of a spirit which is to 
exist for ever. 

But even supposing it quite certain, (and one 
would be most reluctant to adopt the contrary 
belief which some have expressed,) that this poet 
possessed the true devotion which many parts of 
his writings indicate, it may well be questioned 
whether their composition did not, at times, so 
occupy and swallow up his mind as to preclude or 
impede the direct exercises of piety. Yet who 
would say, that the composition of the " Night 
Thoughts," (or of " The Task/') was an injurious 
or unprofitable employ ? 

One corrective of that ill influence on spiritual 
comfort and improvement, which has been now 
described as arising from absorption of mind, or 
determination of thought to a particular point, will 
be found it is presumed, by allowing to our secret 
devotions that turn which most accords with the 
actual bent or current of the soul ; or, to express 
it differently, by making our ruling thoughts, for 
the time, a guide, as far as may be, to the parti- 
cular cast and topic of devotion. For, where the 
understanding or the imagination is strongly occu- 



150 XVII. PRE-OCCUPATION 

pied by an object, it seems more practicable to use 
this force than to expel or oppose it. Since the 
power of steam has been applied to navigation, it 
is become possible to propel a vessel directly against 
the wind and the tide ; but there is no inherent 
force analagous to this, (at least none is found 
in some minds,) by which the earnest course of 
thought strongly " setting in " towards a certain 
point, can be directly stemmed. What, then, is 
our resource, but to endeavour that the contrary 
current shall indirectly serve us ; as in the ordinary 
way of navigation, the vessel yields to the prevail- 
ing breeze, and has her sails filled obliquely by 
that very gale, which, if her prow were pointed 
against it, would quite baffle and stop her course. 

But, it may be said, some Christians are intently 
engaged in pursuits no way censurable, (on which, 
therefore, in a general way, they can implore the 
divine blessing.) and yet so secular, that it appears 
incongruous, and even indecorous, to refer to them 
in their devotions. A mechanician, exercising his 
inventive talent on some new application of 
" power,'" or some improved adjustment of wheels 
and valves ; or a chemist, as profoundly engaged 
in the analysis of an earth or a fluid ; or an artist, 
before whose " prophetic eye " the gradual idea of 
a fine group is mentally rising, must force himself, 






OF THE MIND. 151 

it may seem, quite away from the immediate object 
of thought, if he would rightly enter on devout 
worship. 

Yet the incongruity, or remoteness, is (in these 
instances at least) more seeming than real. The 
inquiries and operations of science and art are all 
linked with the laws and works of nature ; — and 
what are these but the presence and agency of its 
glorious Author ? We can imagine the illustrious 
Boyle quite absorbed in those celebrated experi- 
ments on air, in which mechanics and chemistry 
were combined ; and that he, when interrupting 
himself in the most favourite studies of the labo- 
ratory to fulfil the solemn and beloved employments 
of the oratory, might conduct himself by some 
such gradual transition as this into the tract of 
devotional feeling. — Oh, Thou, by whom " all 
things consist,*" who didst form the substance of 
matter, and impress on it the laws and properties 
of its being, Thou knowest it is my delight to 
investigate thy works ; whatever discoveries I may 
be permitted to make concerning that unseen, but 
wonderful fluid, on which Thou hast made animal 
and vegetable life, in this world, to depend, may 
they awaken me to deeper veneration for Thyself, 
the invisible Spirit, in whom, far more truly and 
eminently, we live, and move, and have our being ! 



152 XVII. — PRE-OCCUPATION 

Grant, also, that the inquiries, in which I am so 
pleasurably engaged, on the subtile composition 
and qualities of aerial fluids, may strengthen my 
joyful belief, or facilitate my apprehension, of the 
indestructible nature of spirit, and of the promised 
resurrection of a spiritual body. 

Nor is it more difficult to suppose the late sculptor 
Bacon, who was likewise eminent for the union of 
talent and piety, bent on the study of the great 
Chatham^ monument, filled with the design which 
he was about to execute, or beginning with ardour 
to sketch or model it, and then retiring into his 
closet, not to break off suddenly and altogether 
from the object which had pre-occupied him ; but 
to say, — Oh, Thou Eternal Mind, Source of all 
that is wise and great, how noble are the faculties 
which Thou hast given to the creatures " made in 
thine image, after thy likeness ;" how noble, some- 
times, the expression and indication of those facul- 
ties, even in a frame so soon to be dissolved ! Thou 
hast endued me with the talent of feebly imitating 
that frame which is so " fearfully and wonderfully 
made." Thy indulgent providence has made this 
^art an enjoyment. Bless it also, by thy grace, to 
my highest improvement. Help me to consider 
with adoration and thankfulness, while I labour to 
convey to lifeless materials some faint resemblance 



OF THE MIND. 153 

of the character of motion and of mind, how un- 
searchable are thy power and skill, who givest 
vitality to inert matter, and dost unite intellect with 
the dust ! And when I remember how that com- 
manding form, which I am about to represent in 
marble, now lies mouldering ; and how the spirit, 
which electrified the senate, is passed away ; may 
these thoughts inspire new gratitude for the blessed 
hope of the gospel ; for that sublime Visitor of 
earth, who " hath made death ineffectual, and life 
and incorruption clear ;"* who himself broke the 
prison of the tomb, and rose a living monument of 
his own voluntary subjection to death, and eternal 
triumph over the grave. 

If it be said, — The employments of these excel- 
lent persons were of an intellectual kind ; but 
similar transitions to devout thought could not be 
made from the anxious affairs of commerce, or from 
the petty, yet perplexing routine of ordinary 
business ;— this must be granted ; but then, neither 
ought those concerns, in general, so deeply to ab- 
sorb the mind, as it is the very nature of intellec- 
tual employments frequently to do. 

Another corrective, however, of this mental 
alienation or prepossession, and more available, 

* 2 Tim. i. 10. Macknight's translation and note. 
H 3 



1 54 XVII. PRE-OCCUPATION 

perhaps, in the cases just mentioned, is to be 
found in the well known expedient of using (at 
least in a way of preparation) the pious sentiments 
of others. The devotional parts of scripture, and 
the reading or recitation of sacred poetry, have an 
obvious tendency to tranquillize and elevate the 
thoughts ; and, perhaps, the partial, or introduc- 
tory adoption of forms of worship, in secret, is 
sometimes profitable. 

There may, indeed, be a wrong and profitless 
use of all these helps ; and particularly with regard 
to forms of worship, it is conceivable, that some 
who desire to " pray with the spirit," may yet 
needlessly resort to them as a customary resource 
from mental effort ; yet, when the mind is in the 
state now described, it may be found more prac- 
ticable, (and that by Christians who are quite 
awake to the danger of formality,) to adopt from 
the heart the ideas and desires of others, than to 
collect and express their own ; while those ideas 
and desires may be likewise in themselves more 
spiritual, more copious, more appropriate, than 
any which, in such circumstances, could be at 
once originated. If experience prove to an indi- 
vidual, that, by such aid, his w < heart is" sometimes 
more " fixed" than without it, he, certainly, by 
its use, on such occasions, consults the true ends 



OF THE MIND. 155 

of all worship, — his own spiritual benefit and the 
glory of GocL 

But while every expedient is commendable, that 
really conduces to these, it is not the less certain, 
that a due regulation of mind is of the first import- 
ance to our Religious, as well as secular interests. 
It will be for the happiness of all to cultivate, in 
every pursuit, habits of fixed attention, composed- 
ness, mental self-control ; and especially to do so 
in the earlier years of life, before contrary habits 
and tempers acquire strength. 

Even idolaters have felt the peculiar impropriety 
of not giving the whole mind to sacred rites. We 
learn from Plutarch, that, while the Roman 
magistrate was employed in augury, or sacrificing, 
a herald admonished the people, " Hoc age P 
Mind this ! — a precept, supposed by him to be 
derived from Pythagoras. How much stronger 
reason is there for us, when engaged in the " sacri- 
fice of praise," or of " a contrite spirit,*" before the 
living God, to remember the more forcible precept 
of Paul, " "Ev rovToig i'o-&* ;" — In these things be ; 
— or, " Give thyself wholly to them P* 

* 1 Tim. iv. 15. An injunction, which, though primarily 
applied to the official engagements of the evangelist, cannot but 
be eminently applicable to the devotional duties of the Christian. 



XVIII. 



ON SPECIAL AND RECENT SIN AS FORMING AN 
URGENT REASON FOR CONTRITE PRAYER. 



Oh, that my mind were more deeply and poig- 
nantly affected at the thought of having affronted 
the " terrible majesty" of the universal Judge, 
and abused the tender forbearance of my un- 
wearied benefactor ; at having stifled the warnings 
of a conscience illuminated by heavenly truth, and 
rebelled against a holy and forgiving God ; against 
Him who gave and sustains the very faculties by 
which I have transgressed, against Him who could 
instantaneously, by an agonizing correction, or a 
fearful judgment, teach me the omnipotence of his 
disregarded justice ! 

How melancholy and how criminal is that ten- 
dency which I discover in my heart, after the first 



XVIII. — RECENT SIN. 157 

pains of self-accusation are past, to harden or 
soothe, rather than humble itself; to extenuate 
the offence, or to argue with a callous and perilous 
sophistry, — So many have been the preceding 
offences, that this can have added little to the 
account of guilt. 

What deadly qualities are not united in this 
serpent evil, which fascinates, while it pierces the 
soul, and has a venom that not only corrupts, but 
benumbs and paralizes also ! It is true, the gos- 
pel of Christ invites and enjoins me to embrace the 
hope of abundant pardon : it forbids despondency 
after a genuine and penitential recourse to that 
Divine Saviour, whose " blood cleanseth from all 
sin ;" — but how shall I rightly resort to this par- 
doning mercy without a true and profound contri- 
tion of spirit ? Or ought even the firmest hope of 
forgiveness to prevent or abate undissembled humi- 
liation and bitter self-reproach , when I reflect that 
all past, and present, and future good, not only to 
the latest instant of this life, but through the 
boundless ages of the life to come, must be derived 
to me solely from the free mercy of Him whose 
gracious precepts I have so lately scorned or for- 
gotten; when I meditate on having chosen or 
tolerated that, on account of which, it behoved 
the Son of God to suffer untold anguish, from pure 



158 XVIII. RECENT SIN. 

love to the ruined victims of transgression ; when 
I acknowledge that the conduct or spirit of which 
I have been recently conscious, must, if unforsaken, 
alienate me for ever from the temper and the joys 
of heaven, and condemn me, by a dreadful neces- 
sity of nature, to an exile from happiness, even 
were I surrounded by its brightest tokens and 
manifestations, where the righteous " shine forth 
as the sun in the kingdom of their Father ?" 
Tremble, my soul, at such a thought ! Shudder at 
having indulged for a day, or cherished for an 
hour, (or were it but for a moment,) that which, 
if perpetuated, were in itself " everlasting destruc- 
tion;" that which has in it the accursed quality 
and savour of the " second death." 

When I am penetrated with this appalling truth, 
that a Being, "glorious in holiness," hath " set 
my iniquities before Him, my secret sins in the 
light of his countenance," that He u understandeth 
my thought afar off," and is u acquainted with all 
my ways," that he could instantly lay open the 
record of my multiplied offences, and proclaim 
them by " the voice of an archangel in the great 
congregation of spirits and just men,"* that He 
could fill me with that " everlasting contempt" and 

* Jeremy Taylor. 



XVIII. RECENT SIN. 159 

incurable remorse, which must be the portion of 
the impenitent and unpardoned, what should be my 
emotion at having exposed myself to such a doom ; 
what fervency should inspire and pervade all my 
pleas for the benefits of that Saviour's atoning 
death, " whom God hath set forth to be a propi- 
tiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his 
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, 
through the forbearance of God ;" and how abun- 
dantly augmented henceforth should be my love 
and devotedness to Him, through whom alone I can 
attain the peaceful hope that my " transgression is 
forgiven," that my " sin is covered." And surely 
nothing, except unfeigned penitence, evinced by 
importunate prayer, can justly afford me this testi- 
mony. I cannot, without the most dangerous and 
culpable presumption, account myself in a state of 
acceptance and reconciliation with God, except 
every known sin be followed by genuine repentance, 
thus heartily expressed. I can now have no evi- 
dence^ whatever may have preceded, of being in a 
pardoned state, until this disposition, and this act, 
have been solemnly renewed. " Repentance," (says 
the excellent Bates) "is not an initial act of sor- 
row, but must be renewed all our lives. God's 
pardoning us is not a transient act, but continued ; 
as conservation is a continued creation." And if 



160 XVIII. — RECENT SIN. 

our constant sins of imperfection and frailty make 
this at all times needful, then surely ought the 
sense of especial and peculiar guilt to constrain and 
stimulate us into proportionately earnest suppli- 
cation. " Our desires," (says the same author) 
" should be raised in the most intense degrees in 
some proportion to the value of the blessing ; they 
should be strong as our necessity to obtain it. The 
pardon of our sins is the effect of God's highest 
favour, of that love which is peculiar to his chil- 
dren ; 'tis the fruit of our saviour's bloody suffer- 
ings; without it we are miserable forever; and 
can we expect to obtain it by a formal superficial 
prayer ? It deserves the flower and zeal of our 
affections. How solicitous, and vehement, and 
unsatisfied should we be, till we have the clear 
testimony that we are in a state of divine favour !" 
And when 1 thus address myself to the Sove- 
reign Source of compassion, it is indispensable to 
implore, not only forgiveness, but heavenly strength 
against the future assaults of that sin, which has 
" pierced me through with many sorrows ;" resum- 
ing more strenuously, (notwithstanding the sad 
review of their former insufficiency,) and with more 
deep dependence on that heavenly strength, my 
sacred resolutions ; entreating that the essential 
beauty and excellence of holiness may never more 



XVIII. — RECENT SIN, 161 

be eclipsed by the miserable and dying illusions of 
evil ; that the intrinsic loathsomeness and malignity 
of sin may never more be cloaked or veiled from 
my spiritual sight, amidst the fading allurements 
or specious deceits with which it can here invest 
itself ; that I may never more yield to that wilful 
infatuation, which refuses to anticipate the dismal 
retrospects of a wounded conscience, and its yet 
more dismal presages ; never more may become 
insensible to this momentous truth, that Christian 
uprightness, and purity, and spirituality, can alone 
arm the soul against inevitable trials or prepare it 
for the region where a holy Saviour dwells. 






XIX. 



ON THE DUTY AND IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER 
FOR OUR FELLOW CHRISTIANS. 



Even if I possessed no other part of revealed 
truth than the historical books of the Old Testa- 
ment, yet, giving credence and attention to these, 
I should find various encouragement to offer up 
intercession for the servants of God. The conde- 
scension of Jehovah to Abraham's repeated plea 
for the righteous in Sodom, was an early and im- 
pressive sanction of this practice. The many pre- 
vailing prayers of Moses for the chosen people, by 
which, at one time, the " wrath" of the Almighty 
was averted/ at another, " the fire which burnt 

* Exodus xxxii. 11 — 14. 



FELLOW-CHRISTIANS. 1 63 

among them quenched,"* and, after a signal in- 
stance of murmuring and revolt, " their iniquity 
pardoned according to his word, n "'-|- evince its great 
occasional efficacy. The intense perseverance of 
that man of God, when, as it appears, on several 
occasions, he " fell down before the Lord forty 
days and forty nights," J on their behalf, shews 
how deep a conviction he had of the importance of 
earnest and continued intercession to their welfare ; 
and the remarkable words of Samuel in a like case, 
" As for me, God forbid that I should sin against 
the Lord in ceasing to pray for you,"§ imply that 
this was deemed by him a regular and imperative 
obligation of piety. 

But should I suspect (which indeed would be a 
mere assumption) that the office belonged, chiefly 
or exclusively, to the prophetic or judicial charac- 
ter, and that private worshippers could infer no 
duty or expectation from the practice or success of 
these eminent individuals, I cannot examine the 
New Testament, without finding the general duty 
and efficacy of such prayers distinctly established. 
The duty may be strongly inferred from our 
Saviour's command, that his disciples should pray 

* Numbers xi. 1, 2. -|- Numbers xiv. 20. 

J Deuteronomy ix. 18, 19, 25. x. 10. § 1 Samuel xii. 23. 
See also Job xlii. 8 — 10. 



164 XIX. — PRAYER FOR 

even for their enemies and persecutors,* (which is 
enjoined as a mode of " doing them good ;") par- 
ticularly when we view this command in connexion 
with his own wonderful intercession on the cross. 
The precept is strengthened and urged by that 
divine example ;*f* and since the part of our Lord's 
intercessions, which is incomparably most difficult 
to our corrupt nature, was thus designed to be 
imitated by his followers, and was so, in a very 
striking manner, by the martyr Stephen, we can- 
not doubt that other parts of them, which are far 
more easily imitable, were also intended to guide 
the practice of Christians. Such is the prayer for 
the support of Peter's faith, mentioned to him by 
his gracious Master ;| and such the large and 
tender intercessions for his disciples, and for those 
who should believe on him through their word.§ 
It was in reference to an office of kindness, that our 
Saviour said, " I have given you an example, that 
ye should do as I have done unto you :"}| nor can it 
be conceived, that so natural a resource of friend- 
ship and sympathy would be neglected, with their 
heavenly Teacher's pattern in their remembrance, 
and with those and his other words on record, 

* Matthew v. 44. Luke vi. 28. 

f Luke xxiii. 34. % Luke xxii. 32. § John xvii. 

I! John xiii. 15. 



FELLOW-CHRISTIANS. 165 

" This is my commandment, that ye love one 
another as I have loved you." 

The efficacy of individual intercession is also 
pointedly declared in the epistle of James ; Ci Pray 
one for another, — the inwrought prayer of a 
righteous man availeth much :"* and the Apostle 
John directs Christians to pray for a brother who 
hath committed sin.-f- But should either, or both 
of these injunctions be thought to relate only to the 
prayer of those endowed with spiritual gifts for 
miraculous healing, there remains in the writings 
of St. Paul, a store of scriptural proof, as to the 
general duty and efficacy of intercession for our 
fellow-Christians, so abundant and explicit, that if 
his apostolical claims be acknowledged, this con- 
clusion cannot be evaded. Not only does he ex- 
hort to " intercessions for all men, ,, | but especially 
to " the greatest perseverance in prayer for all the 
saints.^ He also declares, in various forms, the 
constancy and earnestness of his own prayers, both 
for Christian communities and individuals. Thus 
to the Roman and Ephesian churches, he writes ; 
— " Without ceasing, I make mention of you 

* James v. 16. Macknight's translation, -f 1 John v. 16. 

J 1 Timothy ii. 1. 

§ Ephesians vi. 18. Macknight's Commentary. 



166 XIX. — PRAYER FOR 

always in my prayers ;"* — to the Corinthians, " I 
thank my God always on your behalf,"-f- and " I 
pray to God that ye do no evil ; ,? | to his friend 
Philemon, " I thank my God, making mention of 
thee always in my prayers ; n § and to his convert 
Timothy, " Without ceasing I have remembrance 
of thee in my prayers night and day."|| In other 
places he states more particularly the subjects of 
these intercessions.^ And it is clear that he does 
not regard the duty as solely or peculiarly belong- 
ing to his apostolic character, for he informs the 
Colossians, u Epaphras, who is one of you, a 
servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring 
fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand 
perfect and complete in all the will of God ;"** — 
and what is still more to our purpose, he often 
solemly entreats the intercession of Christians for 
himself and others. Thus, addressing the church 
at Rome ; " I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord 
Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, 
that ye strive together with me in your prayers to 

* Romans i. 9. Ephesians i. 16. 
-|- 1 Corinthians i. 4. J 2 Corinthians xiii. 7- 

§ Philemon 4. || 2 Timothy i. 3. 

IF Philippians i. 9, 10, 11. Colossians i. 9, 10, 11. 

2 Thessalonians i. 11, 12. ** Colossians iv. 12. 



FELLOW-CHRISTIANS. 167 

God for me."* Similar requests occur in at least 
four other epistles. -J- The apostle also distinctly 
attributes powerful effects to the past intercessions 
of his Christian friends ; for he ascribes to these 
(at least as a partial means) the deliverance of 
himself and his companions in Asia, when they had 
" despaired even of life ;" " you also helping toge- 
ther by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed 
on us by the means of many persons, thanks may 
be given by many on our behalf : ? *J and he ex- 
presses a similar expectation as to other events. 
Thus, after naming to the Philippians, a particu- 
lar trial which he was enduring at Rome, he adds, 
" I know that this shall turn to my salvation, 
through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit 
of Jesus Christ."§ It appears, therefore, to have 
been particularly designed, that the epistles of 
Paul, among many other most important instruc- 
tions, should specially enforce this duty, and en- 
courage us in the persuasion of its benefits. 

But have I, notwithstanding this fulness of en- 
couragement from the Scriptures, a higher degree 

* Romans xv. 30. 
f 1 Thessalonians v. 25. 2 Thessalonians iii. 1, 2. Colos- 
sians iv. 3. Ephesians vi. 19. 

$ 2 Corinthians i. 8—11. 
§ Philippians i. 19, and see Philemon 22. 



168 XIX. PRAYER FOR 

of secret distrust as to any real good which may 
arise to Christian friends or communities, from mv 
exercise of this duty, than as to the efficacy of my 
petitions for personal blessings ? What is the source 
of such distrust ? Is it that I suppose certain 
scriptural declarations to imply, that the prayers 
of Christians for themselves will be always suffi- 
cient to secure their real welfare, and that, there- 
fore, intercessions for them may not be, strictly 
speaking, needful or beneficial? This would be 
imputing to the sacred writers acts and admoni- 
tions which were insincere or erroneous. If the 
opinion that intercession w^ould be superfluous, 
could in any particular case have been allowably 
indulged, it might have been by these converts of 
St. Paul, who had witnessed his miraculous en- 
dowments ; and by himself, who yet more surely 
knew that he was constituted a messenger of 
heaven, under a special assurance of protection 
and success.* But such independence of human 
aid would have nourished a pride and self-suffi- 
ciency, to the dangers of which the apostle was not 
insensible. He was made, therefore, habitually to 
feel, that this protection and success would be 
dependent on the whole system of means fit to be 

* Acts xxvi. 17 5 18. 



FELLOW-CHRISTIANS. 169 

used, both by himself and others, and that among 
these a principal one was the divinely instituted 
duty of intercession. On the same conviction the 
first Christians also acted, even with respect to the 
chief apostles. From the unceasing prayer of the 
church at Jerusalem, for the release of Peter,* 
(who, in the same city, had proved his divine com- 
mission by so many miracles,*f-) and from the 
prayers of the Corinthians, to which Paul refers, 
as having contributed to his own rescue from im- 
pending death, we learn that no eminence, personal 
or official, in the objects of their pious regard, made 
them imagine intercession on their behalf to be need- 
less. Much less ought we to doubt its importance and 
value in respect to ordinary Christians, however supe- 
rior we may account them to ourselves, or whatever 
certainty we may feel of their genuine devotedness. 
St. Paul expresses an entire assurance of the final 
perseverance and perfection of his Philippian con- 
verts :| but almost in the next sentence he offers a 
prayer for their growth and stability in various 
graces.§ And with our intimate sense of the 
defects and inequalities of our own prayers, and 
our observation of the numerous imperfections and 
severe trials of other Christians, — have we not 

* Acts xii. 5. + Acts iii. j. v. 15. 

+ Phillippians i. 6. § Ibid. i. 9, 10, 11. 



170 XIX. PRAYER FOR 

every reason both to desire the intercessions of our 
brethren, to conclude that they may justly desire a 
part even in ours, and to believe that these reci- 
procal exercises of faith and love, are, through the 
sovereign and wise appointment of our heavenly 
Father, mutually needful, and will, through his 
mercy, be mutually availing ? The fact that many 
intercessions may conduce to the perseverance and 
perfection of the believer, is analagous to this very 
familiar fact, that various causes, seen or unseen, 
are often made to conduce to success in any secular 
design. When a person aims at some honourable 
office, his own diligent preparations, and perhaps 
solicitations, are indispensable ; but still a few un- 
solicited words, uttered in his favour by real friends, 
may just fill up that measure of influence, on others 
or on himself, which is requisite to the fulfilment of 
his hopes. And as in other cases, so particularly 
in reference to spiritual interests and attainments, 
we can discern (as was hinted before) some weighty 
reasons for this appointment. If our sense of the 
need and value of mutual help be one great bond 
of civil society, yet more is it adapted to be a bond 
of Christian society, for it promotes those tempers 
which are distinctive of the Christian character, — 
humility and love. If I believe, with St. Paul, 
respecting my fellow-Christians, that all things 



FELLOW-CHRISTIANS. 171 

shall turn to my salvation " through their prayer," 
in conjunction with my own, then I have not only 
to be grateful for the fountain of " living water," 
"the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ," but 
for the various channels, known and unknown, 
through which it is partially derived and conveyed. 
The lowliest Christian whom I have sought to 
benefit, or possibly whom I have overlooked and 
neglected, may be the instrument of averting from 
me an evil, or procuring to me a good, the extent 
of which neither can in this world calculate. Such 
a belief cannot but promote both " lowliness of 
mind," and a sentiment of affection towards all 
whom I rftay believe to fulfil sincerely this office of 
pious friendship ; for every such person, however 
unable in other respects to aid me, thus assumes the 
capacity of a real benefactor. And this kind of 
obligation, from whatever quarter it be incurred, is 
not, like many others, felt to be a burden. We 
know that they who affectionately offer prayers for 
us, enlarge and satisfy their hearts, while in this 
benefaction, they present nothing with their hands. 
We hope, also, that we can return for these expres- 
sions of their love, intercessions not less genuine ; 
and besides this, there is no doubt, that many a 
devout and grateful heart has felt itself relieved 
from the oppressive sense of other bounties, when, 

i 2 



172 XIX. — PRAYER FOR 

having nought else to render, it has poured forth 
in secret its best desires and petitions for their dis- 
penser, to their Divine Author. I have been told, 
that a Christian, distinguished by his large pecu- 
niary beneficence,* strictly enjoined his almoners to 
prevent the objects of it from thanking him, either 
personally or by letter, for his ample gifts. He 
justly alleged the multiplied claims on his time as a 
reason for this prohibition, and probably the know- 
ledge of his own heart suggested another secret 
reason of equal force. But the restriction was so 
painful to some grateful receivers of his bounty, as 
to be submitted to with the utmost reluctance. We 
can well conceive a pious beneficiary who was com- 
pelled to this unwilling silence, taking refuge from 
that constraint with greater earnestness in the 
devotions of the closet ; and the feelings of a full 
neart, like waters forcibly compressed, rising the 
more suddenly and strongly to heaven, because de- 
barred from their natural course on earth. We 
can imagine such an individual entering on fervent 
intercessions for that munificent friend with senti- 
ments like these ; — You have forbidden every ex- 
pression of my gratitude to yourself, and I feel 
this deeply as a hardship ; but you cannot prohibit 

* The late Mr. Henry Thornton. 



FELLOW-CHRISTIANS. 1 73 

or impede what I trust will be a more effectual, 
as well as more unequivocal testimony of it, those 
solemn and affectionate supplications for your 
eternal gain, which, I humbly hope, will be known 
by their fruits in the great day of account. 

Love is cherished in the mind, not only by the 
belief that others will benefit us, but also by the 
belief that we can reciprocally procure real good 
to them. Simply to think of a friend with affec- 
tion, is a very inefficient, and sometimes, a melan- 
choly employ ; but if I can perform a real kind- 
ness towards him, however secretly, I do that 
which is pleasurable in itself, and tends, by bring- 
ing him often into my thoughts as an object of 
regard, to unite me more and more with him in 
heart. If you can carry to a sufferer food or 
medicine, or advice or consolation, you will 
probably visit him frequently, and your concern 
for him will increase. If you could bestow nothing 
but a look of grief, which you know would be 
fruitless, you would be likely to turn aside from 
his door. So he who really believes that he can 
substantially benefit his Christian friends by prayer 
on their behalf, will often bring their characters 
and circumstances in review before his mind, and 
by every such mental act, will strengthen the habit 
of sympathizing affection. And while the prac- 



174 XIX.— PRAYER FOR 

tice tends to promote humility and love on earth, 
the retrospect of it may have the same effect, more 
eminently, in a future state of social blessedness. 
How delightfully endearing, in that perfect state, 
for the circles of pious friendship, and those inti- 
mately connected here in Christian communion, 
fully to feel and know that the eventual happiness 
of each is to be traced in part, in strumen tally, to 
the intercession of all ; so that, in heaven as well 
as on earth, "for the gift bestowed by the means 
of many," even the precious gift of augmented 
felicity, " thanks may be given by many," to God 
and to each other, on behalf of their associates and 
themselves. May we not suppose, that the most 
near and tender friendships of the heavenly world, 
will subsist between those whose prayers have been 
most earnest and most prevalent for each other, 
while they sojourned here ? 

And if we can thus perceive a present improve- 
ment of the most valuable graces, and a future 
augmentation of pure and never-ending enjoy- 
ments, to be the natural results of this divine 
institute, truly here is enough to repress and to 
rebuke every doubt regarding its importance. 

But perhaps my misgiving as to the efficacy of 
my ordinary intercessions, arises from this, — that 
I cannot habitually intercede in a copious or dis- 



FELLOW- CHRISTIANS. 175 

tinct manner, even for my nearer circle of Christian 
friends, still less in proportion as the connexion is 
more remote. In the latter cases, my petitions are, 
of necessity, quite general, and as to the former, if 
I include, in my daily prayers, all, or most, of 
those who have some special claim on my remem- 
brance, want of time must prevent these interces- 
sions from being specific or enlarged. 

On this it may be observed, that we cannot sup- 
pose a devout Christian will often omit daily inter- 
cession, though it be necessarily brief, for the few 
who are most near and dear. But with respect to 
other friends, it seems most natural and expedient, 
that our prayers should be but occasional, in order 
that they may then be more prolonged. There are 
very few, even of our best friends, whom we can 
visit daily. How happy would some be if they 
could meet even yearly. Bu if we made it a rule 
of piety and kindness, daily to offer up particular 
intercession for one individual, or one household, 
and thus successively for each, these secret visits 
of the heart would, in many instances, be far more 
frequent than our personal or epistolary intercourse 
can be. Amidst the inclemency of winter, or in 
the chamber of sickness, we might still make the 
swift excursions, and offer the best though un- 
heard salutations, of Christian affection : — those 



176 XIX. PRAYER FOR 

friends of course claiming precedence in our 
thoughts, whose feelings or circumstances were 
known to demand at the time peculiar sympathy 
or interest. 

In cases, however, where brevity is necessary, 
the mistrust which may arise from it is an illusion. 
No number or variety of words can constitute the 
essence or effectiveness of prayer, as viewed by the 
Divine Mind. If, indeed, our prayers for our- 
selves were needlessly brief, scanty, and general, 
this would indicate an absence of desire ; a want of 
sensibility to our own particular sins and defects ; 
an undue preference for other engagements ; and 
a distaste for converse with our Supreme Bene- 
factor. Besides, the attainment of pardon, reno- 
vation, and final perfection, is our great personal 
concern. It were unreasonable and impracticable, 
in this as in other affairs, that men should ordinarily 
give as much time to the concerns of various 
friends, severally, as to their own. But the brevity 
of prayers, even for personal blessings, when they 
are offered amidst really urgent occupation, or 
under sudden temptation, cannot be supposed to 
render them less effectual, than as if, in other cir- 
cumstances, our emotions and wants had been ever 
so copiously developed. Those affecting and sub- 
lime words of our Lord, u Father, save me from 



FELLOW-CHRISTIANS. 177 

this hour ;" — " Father, glorify thy name ;" — if we 
may venture reverently to appropriate them in the 
crisis of danger or distress, will surely, at such a 
moment, express as much before God, as if our 
need of succour could be fully unfolded, or our 
submission largely declared. 

And thus the necessary brevity of many of our 
intercessions, provided there be in them the real 
sentiment of Christian love, cannot be deemed to 
lessen their efficacy. It is this sentiment of " fer- 
vent charity ," in which we so much need to 
" abound more and more," that would give to our 
briefest and most general intercessions a new vita- 
lity and power. It was this which melted and shed 
abroad, in a thousand glowing currents, (if one 
may speak so,) the heart of the converted Paul ; 
so that " the whole world," as Fenelon observes, 
" was too narrow for this heart :" and Chrysostom 
finely remarks on the affection expressed by that 
apostle for the church at Philippi ;* "It was much 
6 to have them in his heart,' but much more when 
in chains ; yet more when engaged ' in the defence 
and confirmation of the gospel f for he seems to 
refer to the time when he was brought before his 
judges, and underwent the extremity of peril. 

* Philippians i. 7- 

i 3 



178 XIX. — PRAYER, &C. 

Even standing there, (he seems to say,) I medi- 
tated not how I should be rescued from imminent 
dangers, or how escape the snares of conspiracy, 
but I was delighting in your love, and in converse 
with the absent ; not length of distance, nor the 
crowd of cares, nor the magnitude of perils ; not 
the fear of rulers, nor the insurrection of multi- 
tudes ; not death impending, not naked swords, 
not the array of executioners, nor any other object, 
could sever me from the remembrance of you. — 
For nothing is more imperious, nothing more sub- 
lime than love ; it flies above all such weapons ; it 
is loftier than the darts of the great adversary ; 
from the topmost heaven it looks downward on 
them all, and as the vehemence of a mighty wind 
sweeps away the oppressive dust, so the force of 
love sweeps away the turmoil of all other passions. 
Thus it was with Paul. In all events, he had 
sufficient consolation, the salvation and the remem- 
brance of those whom he loved."* 

* Chrysos. Horn. iv. Selectae a Matthsei. Horn, 2, p. 84. 
The original passage has a force and harmony of diction, which 
I have found no means of transfusing into a version. 



XX. 



ON ENDEAVOURING, AMIDST DEJECTION, TO 
" LOOK AT THE THINGS WHICH ARE UNSEEN." 

All earthly things appear to thee more dark 
and cheerless than the clouds of this autumn day. 
But why not, by an effort of contemplation, and 
by the grace of faith, enter into other scenes, 
and rise to glorious and unchangeable realities ? 
Knowest thou not that all the disappointments and 
disgusts of this life will, ere long, be as if they had 
never been ; and has not the word of God assured 
thee of a mansion, nay, of " many mansions, 1 '' 
where all is grandeur, and serenity, and love ? 

A prisoner confined in the darkest cell, or an 
artisan wearied with the most irksome sameness of 
employ, may transport himself, in thought, to the 
charms of the fairest landscape, or to dwellings of 



ISO XX. IN DEJECTION. 

ease and social pleasure ; and although his despond- 
ency may be, in some cases, justly deepened, by a 
well-grounded fear that these enjoyments will never 
become his, thou, that art about to worship the 
" Father of mercies," by that " new and living 
way," which Christ " hath consecrated for us, 1 ' art 
surely not authorized to cherish the same gloomy 
apprehension with regard to things eternal. 

The sacred intercourse with heaven, in which 
thou art preparing to engage, implies, if it be sin- 
cere, a true desire of celestial good, and of that 
holiness which qualifies for its possession. And 
will such a desire be disregarded or frustrated by 
" the God of all grace V The Divine Teacher and 
Saviour hath solemnly proclaimed, " Blessed are 
they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for 
they shall bejilled" 

Seek then to realize, even as at this moment sub- 
sisting in all its glory, a world of perfect purity 
and joy ; think of the full displays of the divine 
excellency, which there imbue with unmingled de- 
light every adoring inhabitant. Try to conceive 
that inexpressible peace, combined with an un- 
speakable energy and ardour of love, which a 
present God can infuse, and is at this very hour 
infusing, into happy spirits that encircle his throne. 
Even at this point of time, while thou art depressed 



XX. IN DEJECTION. 181 

by saddening thoughts, and the heavy rain-drops 
only remind thee of the gloom of external nature, 
there is a joyful assembly raising the ceaseless 
anthem of praise, which fills with rapture every 
being that unites in it. No petty cares, no painful 
regrets, no distractions of thought, no infirmities of 
the body or the mind, impede that consentaneous 
flow of love and ecstasy. Every spirit is absorbed 
in blissful emotion, incapable of satiety, in deep 
sympathy with the rest, yet supremely fixed on 
the great original of all their joy. If it were not 
for space interposed, or perhaps only mortal weak- 
ness forbidding, an enrapturing view of the felicity 
which God imparts to unfallen or restored crea- 
tures, might this moment burst upon thee. These 
particles of light which have just reached thine 
eye, come tinged with a sort of congenial sadness 
as they gleam between wintry clouds ; yet, only 
eight minutes since, (the calculations of science 
assure us,) did these very particles issue from the 
glowing sun, the spring of warmth and radiance. 
Were it ordained that one or more of them should 
become the organs of thy disembodied being, and 
by a reverted flight, not swifter than their journey 
hither, should bear thee to the orb whence they 
emanated, fewer moments than thou hast now oc- 
cupied in one low circle of anxious thought, would 



182 



XX. IN DEJECTION. 



suffice to carry thee into the very focus of our 
heaven's effulgence. The harp of Uriel, or the 
full harmony of the spheres, might, long before 
that, enchant thy new and finer sense ; the glorious 
eompanies of the happy might visibly surround 
thee with smiles of gratulation : the cares and dark 
imaginings of this little scene would have died into 
remoteness, and perhaps oblivion. Or possibly, 
not even any change of place were needful to this 
change of scene. There might need but the fall of 
the grosser frame, the dissolving of this u taber- 
nacle," to reveal a world of blissful existence even 
here; as the mountain in Dothan, when God 
opened the eyes of the prophet's desponding ser- 
vant, " was full of horses and chariots of fire round 
about Elisha." 

But whatever be the fact (as to nearness or re- 
moteness) with regard to created glories, the Lord 
of glory is ever with thee. He who gives being 
and perpetuity to all those unseen joys is here. 
" Do I not fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord ?" 
Wilt thou then approach, as a worshipper, this 
God of glory, with a dull and unmoved heart ? 
After one glance at what is now existing and trans- 
acting in some other region (perhaps even in this 
region) of his works, wilt thou be faint and feeble- 
minded to implore his Holy Spirit, the earnest of 



XX. IN DEJECTION. 183 

a participation in his own felicity ? Has not " the 
God of all patience and comfort/' by the lips of 
his beloved Son, most emphatically promised to 
them that ask him, this divine gift, this inestimable 
pledge ? Is it a gift to be sought coldly, or en- 
treated carelessly ? — even the sovereign blessing of 
Him that has all the springs of joy ? 

Surely the indifference or distaste which is now 
experienced by thee with regard to the ordinary 
comforts and occupations of this life, will not be 
allowed to extend to those heavenly hopes which 
are essentially and everlastingly worthy of thy 
warmest pursuit ; to that state where there will be 
an eternal plenitude of spiritual delights, adequate 
to the satisfaction of immortal desires, and where 
these hallowed desires can themselves never lan- 
guish or decline. Awake, O candidate for an in- 
corruptible crown ; address thyself to " the Father 
of lights," as if some ray from the glory and beauty 
of his heavenly temple were poured upon thine 
inward vision ; as if some faint echo of the hal- 
lelujahs of the perfect had visited thine ear ! 



XXL 



ON THE DUTY OF REMEMBERING, IN A SIN- 
FUL OR INSENSIBLE TEMPER OF MIND, HOW 
THE ALMIGHTY CAN CORRECT. 

The thought of our own death, and of the life 
which follows, when impressively presented, and 
deeply received into the mind, is a thought of un- 
equalled power. But it is not the only thought 
which can revive, by a salutary dread, our im- 
paired sense of that awful truth, " the Lord God 
Omnipotent reigneth." There are possibilities and 
probabilities, which, by their number, their variety, 
and their apprehended nearness in point of time, 
may affect me more than the foresight of that last 
event, which, though inevitably certain, is gene- 
rally conceived of as distant. 

Now that my mind is, in a great measure, in- 
susceptive of the truth or awfulness of God's moral 



XXI. POWER OF GOD TO CORRECT. 185 

government, and the infinite importance of his 
favour, I should endeavour to call up the reflection 
how entire is my dependence, and in how many 
ways I am vulnerable. When the great poet of 
mythology represents " the Lord of the unerring 
bow," as bending it against the Grecian hosts, and 
discharging arrows " bright with an immortal's 
vengeance,''* he does but use the same figure 
(though with a peculiar and beautiful appropriation 
of it to the destructive sunbeams) which the poets 
of the true theology had before applied to the visi- 
tations, whether visible, or invisible, of a power 
really divine. Job had exclaimed, " The arrows 
of the Almighty are within me !" David, though 
not less brave than the Argive warriors, had cried 
out in anguish, " Thine arrows stick fast in me V 
And what figure can more truly, as well as forcibly, 
represent our exposed condition here, than that 
which the former of those sacred writers pursues, 
when he says, God hath " set me up for his mark : 
his archers compass me round about ;" — the condi- 
tion of one who is open to the flying points of un- 
numbered arrows ? How silently, how secretly, 
may the darts of bodily or mental suffering reach 

* See note F, at the end of the volume. 



186 XXI. POWER OF GOD TO CORRECT. 

me ! The shaft of death may strike suddenly and 
in succession those that are dearest, till I am ready 
to adopt that mournful expostulation, " Insatiate 
archer, could not one suffice ?" The viewless dart 
of pain may touch a minute vessel or a minuter 
nerve, and all earthly comfort be suspended, while 
that hidden wound is unhealed. Or what is still 
more keen, and often less curable, the barb sharp- 
ened by calumny or unkindness, by the misconduct 
or calamities of another, or by spiritual dejection 
and terror, may " enter into my soul/' Of all 
these kinds, (and how innumerable the individual 
varieties of each,) are the weapons of the just and 
holy God, " the arrows of his quiver/' They are 
sometimes the missiles of an instant, more rapid 
than the darting beams that glanced pestilence on 
the dying Greeks. Would not the actual pang but 
from one of these, at once painfully awaken me to 
my need of divine help and healing ? And can I 
doubt, that, amidst my numberless provocations, 
on me also he hath, as it were, " bent his bow and 
made it ready P 1 Yet how seldom has' the arrow 
flown : And how frequently has it come like an 
arrow spent or blunted, which might have had a 
tenfold force or keenness, but for the forbearance 
or gentleness of that mighty arm which directed it? 



XXI, POWER OF GOD TO CORRECT. 187 

What multiplied occasions have I had to acknow- 
ledge, — " He maketh sore and bindeth up ; — He 
woundeth, and his hands make whole !" 

Nor ought I to consider these arrows of the 
Almighty, even when their wound has been the 
deepest, and when it rankles still, as sent, like 
those of the fabled Divinity, in vengeance. Never 
can this be supposed, except when they are com- 
missioned against the utterly hardened and incorri- 
gible. What can be more agonizing than those 
wounds both of the body and the spirit, which Job 
describes ? — " He cleaveth my reins asunder, and 
doth not spare ; He poureth out my gall upon 
the ground." And yet it is most manifest that 
these were the " faithful wounds " of a heavenly 
" Friend." He who " corrects in measure," may 
have " bent his bow like an enemy ;" indeed, He 
says more than this by the prophet to his servant 
Israel : " I have wounded thee with the wound of 
an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one ; 
which incontrovertibly shews how " grievous," how 
apparently " incurable " may be the pang that is 
yet inflicted in mercy. For what is the sequel ? 
" I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal 
thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord." Finding in 
the Scripture such facts and such assurances, I 
should wrong and affront the divine perfection, by 



188 XXI. — POWER OF GOD TO CORRECT. 

imagining that present chastisement, even when it 
is the immediate effect of sin, is inflicted for any 
other than a restoring purpose. It were comparing 
the righteous and merciful God to the most evil and 
merciless of men, to account his arrows envenomed. 
Rather let me believe that the sharpest are dipped 
in balm. It is true, the patriarch, in the impas- 
sioned language of suffering, says, " The poison 
whereof drinketh up my spirit;" but the poison 
originates and ferments only in the disordered 
frame which they pierce. Even when revengeful 
men and malignant spirits are employed as the 
66 archers" of him who corrects man for iniquity, 
still he has all power and grace to make their 
enmity subservient to the purposes of his own 
loving-kindness. 

But while this consolatory caution with regard to 
the gracious designs of Him who is all-powerful, 
cannot be too deeply impressed on me, let me not 
forget the situation in which I really am while on 
earth, and which the scriptural metaphor so aptly 
expresses. Still, even to the end of my course, I 
shall be like a pilgrim " in the wilderness of Paran," 
among the predatory tribes of Ishmael, " a mark 
for his archers." The next moment can wing an 
unseen arrow, and fix a smart which no human 
skill may avert or mitigate, or perhaps discern, I 



XXI. — POWER OF GOD TO CORRECT. 189 

see continually the effects of these darts on some 
around me ; but there is a far greater multitude 
which are unobserved, and many where the wound 
is as latent as the weapon's flight. — Not that this 
exposed state of pilgrimage should occasion dis- 
may. The soldiers of a wretched ambition, even 
defenceless as they are in modern warfare, have ex- 
hibited astonishing intrepidity and calmness in the 
thickest perils of battle ; a temper of mind which 
denotes insane presumption, when we consider 
the cause in which they have been engaged, 
and the flagrant contempt of God's power and 
law which their lives have often evinced. But 
he who venerates that ever-present power, has all 
reason for courage and confidence. Our God at 
once directs the assailants, and provides the defence 
of his servants. Though " his troops come to- 
gether, and raise up their way against me, and 
encamp round about my tent ;" — " the angel of 
the Lord encampeth (more closely) round about 
them that fear him ;" not indeed to ward off every 
assault, or avert every weapon, but to afford such 
aids as the all-wise and gracious Ruler has himself 
appointed. 

Yet nothing can be more apparent than that a 
remiss, unwatchful, and, if I may so term it, un- 



190 XXT. — TOWER OF GOD TO CORRECT, 

cinctured* frame of spirit, is entirely unsuited to 
a state in which pains and perils continually im- 
pend ; that indulgence in what is wrong, or neglect 
of what is right, gives actual cause for these chas- 
tisements; that when they are inflicted, con- 
science, except it be seared or stupefied, will inter- 
pret them as penalties, and sometimes with the 
dread that they are merely judicial, not corrective ; 
an apprehension which, though it be erroneous, yet, 
while it continues, awfully enhances their severity. 
Besides that, many of the ills of life are express 
and special penalties, (though of the merciful and 
corrective kind,) no believer of the Scriptures can 
doubt. God himself says, " I have wounded thee 
— for the multitude of thine iniquity, because thy 
sins were increased." Even if I could always 
maintain the alleviating persuasion that punishment 
is designed in mercy, this does not wholly change 
its nature as punishment ; still less does it therefore 
cease to be " for the present — grievous" Though 
the arrow be commissioned to do the healing office 
of the lancet, I can scarcely expect to feel assured 
of this when it pierces me ; but if I should, it may 
yet be clear that I have brought on myself the 



* Peter i. 13. 



XXI. — POWER OF GOD TO CORRECT. 191 

disease which calls for so sharp a remedy ; nor 
may the wound in itself be less deep, nor the pain 
less acute, than as if it had come from an enemy's 
quiver. Am I then slumbering when I should 
press onward ? Have I not to expect, continuing 
in this position, to be speedily roused by some 
quickening dart ? Am I loitering, while the sun 
of life declines, or have 1 diverged into some path 
" the ends whereof are the ways of death ?" May 
I not then, with certainty, conclude that He whose 
a eyes are upon the ways of man," who " marketh 
all my paths," has even now " made ready his 
arrow upon the string," and that if I persevere, I 
shall not return without a bleeding heart or a 
wounded spirit ? Unless love to God (that pure 
and delightful motive to vigilance against all sin, 
and zeal in every duty) were perfected in me, I 
cannot but need the harsh checks and incentives of 
fear : and if I fail to contemplate feelingly the 
more awful, but more distant objects of that pas- 
sion, it behoves me to reflect on those which are at 
hand ; the terrors or sufferings which, if God will, 
" shall make me afraid on every side." Have I 
endured " corporal sufferance " and mental anguish 
in time past ? Do I remember, if not the nature 
and degree, yet the effects of each, so as thus to 
compute, in some measure^ what was their intense- 



192 XXI. POWER OF GOD TO CORRECT. 



ness ? Do not I know to what an excruciating ex- 
tremity these might be raised by Him who sustains 
my very existence ? Am I not well aware that the 
same power who " redeemeth my life from destruc- 
tion," can cause me, before another sun shall rise, to 
" water my couch with my tears ?" What stronger 
or more immediate temporal motive for thanksgiv- 
ing, than the present undeserved forbearance of 
God ? What more pressing argument than these 
" innumerable evils " to which I am obnoxious, to 
excite constant and earnest prayer for his holy 
keeping, and unrelaxing watchfulness against those 
transgressions and neglects which, doubtless, are 
often the direct cause of suffering, and which 
always form its bitterest aggravation ? 



XXII 



ON THAT DISCOURAGEMENT IN PRAYER WHICH 
ARISES FROM THE WANT OF SENSIBLE FER- 
VOUR AND JOY. 

The remarkable opinion of Fenelon, u we never 
pray so purely, as when we are tempted to believe 
that we are no longer really praying, because we 
cease to taste a certain pleasure in prayer,"* is 
adapted to afford to some minds a most valuable 
encouragement, provided they be convinced that it 
is grounded on truth, and may be received with 
safety. But the very state of mind to which it 
applies, is that in which we are prone to view all 
encouragement with suspicion. 

Here, indeed, it may be right to premise, (in 
order to preclude any perversion of the sentiments 

* (Euv. Spir. Tom i. pp. 113 and 119. 
K 



]94 XXII. — WANT OF JOY SHOULD 

which follow,) that there is a kind of suspicion, 
which it is a Christian's duty ever to investigate. 
The want of enjoyment in devotion may doubt- 
less be often traced to the indulgence of some sin. 
It should, therefore, lead us the more seriously to 
faithful self-examination, extending to the allowed 
state of the thoughts and affections ; and should 
induce redoubled watchfulness against all that is 
evil, as a canker at the root of spiritual joy. — On 
the other hand, it would be most unwarrantable to 
affirm, that Fenelon, so distinguished for a self- 
scrutinizing and self-denying piety, was grossly 
deceived as to the state of his own heart ; it would 
be presumptuous to suppose that the Father of our 
spirits cannot, or must not, try his servants by 
spiritual privations, as well as in any other manner, 
without peculiar provocation on their part ; and it 
would be cruel, as well as presumptuous, to decide 
for the individual who mourns under such destitu- 
tion, that it necessarily flows from his own sins, 
(otherwise than as all sufferings originally spring 
from that source,) or is absolutely removable by 
his own efforts. 

It is undeniable that perseverance in a duty 
when unattended with pleasure, is a stronger test 
of principle, than the most ample indulgence in a 
privilege which proves its own immediate reward. 



NOT DISCOURAGE PRAYER. 195 

But while we must admit that some principle is 
evinced, we are apt to inquire, (under that painful 
privation of devotional enjoyment), Is it the prin- 
ciple of faith by which I am actuated, or is it a 
mere effort of conscience, which, to appease its 
fears, attempts to counterfeit a sacred engagement ? 
Can we be said to exercise real faith, except our 
prayer be not by self " constraint, but willingly ;" 
and unless, in the course of it, we attain some joy- 
ful or pleasing view r s of the divine perfections and 
promises ?— I apprehend we may ; and even that a 
much stronger exercise of faith may be inferred 
from our " continuing instant" in stated prayer, 
while such views are not imparted, than from the 
greatest copiousness of devotion, amidst the fer- 
vour of elevated and hopeful feeling. 

It was indeed elsewhere observed, that the lively 
joyful exercise of faith is an exercise not only of 
belief, but of imagination ;* (or vivid conception ;) 
but it is far from following as a just consequence, 
that faith, without this cheering auxiliary, cannot 
be genuine, steadfast, or tenacious, We are accus- 
tomed to speak of the light or the eye of faith ; 
by which we mean belief combined with that 
powerful conception of its objects which is highly 

* XI. page 98. 
K 2 



196 XXII. — WANT OF JOY SHOULD 

gratifying, and doubtless, sometimes, highly pro- 
fitable, to the mind possessing it ; but the devout 
and eloquent author, whom I have quoted, often 
speaks of the " darkness," the " profound night 
of pure faith," by which he means a mere belief, 
divested of those accessory aids of imagination and 
sentiment. And it is manifest, that such a mere 
belief if it prompt to supplication and to action, 
attests its own strength far more clearly, than that 
which is reinforced and sustained by pleasurable 
emotions. It may indeed have much more of 
doubt to contend with ; for suspended apprehen- 
sion, regarding spiritual or unseen objects, is (as 
was remarked in another place*) very much allied 
to doubt ; but then the continued life, and action, 
and conflict of faith, amidst such doubt, give 
powerful proof of its reality and force. 

We can imagine two seamen navigating the 
opposite extremities of the same broad ocean. — 
On one, the sun has genially risen, and cheers his 
heart as it scatters brightness over the rippling 
waves. A favourable gale springs up. He is bid 
weigh anchor and hoist all sail. He obeys with 
alacrity and delight. There is no sense of fatigue 
or reluctancy ; with every strain of the cable his 

* XIV. page 124. 



NOT DISCOURAGE PRAYER. 197 

heart bounds homeward : he seems to descry 
already the cliffs of his native shore, and his loud 
cheers keep time with his animated efforts. — On the 
other, the dew of night is falling, or the sharp 
blast whistles round him. Every star is hidden. 
The vessel makes no way. Nothing can be seen, 
and he hears only the gloomy dash of the billow. 
He is directed to ascend the mast, to reef a sail, 
to labour at the pump. He steadily obeys : but 
it is in sadness. His heart is heavy, and his eye 
dull. No lively anticipation of the desired haven 
visits his mind. No note of animation or pleasure 
is heard. Still he continues instant in toil. Will 
it be said that this man shews no genuine trust and 
fidelity ? Rather, surely, that the principle of faith 
or confidence in the master of the vessel is much 
more decisively proved and exhibited in his situa- 
tion, than in that of the first named. 

Discouragement of the kind now referred to, 
may further be alleviated by some other considera- 
tions. If it were the fact that prayer cannot be 
true or effectual, unless attended with some degree 
of pleasurable excitement, then, as it would be 
strictly what I have termed — indulgence in a privi- 
lege, there could be little or no place for our Lord's 
injunction, " that men ought always to pray, and 
not to faint ,•" or for the parallel admonition of 



19S XXII. WANT OF JOY SHOULD 

St. Paul respecting it, that believers should " watch 
thereunto with all perseverance." In an employ- 
ment which was always gratifying, there could be 
little danger of our fainting, except, indeed, from 
the exhausting action of continued pleasure on our 
present feeble faculties : and it was obviously not 
to such fainting that our Saviour referred, but to 
that which arises from weariness in an arduous pur- 
suit, when not immediately or speedily requited. 
If prayer were habitually a highly pleasing occu- 
pation, instead of having to watch thereunto with 
all perseverance, we must employ a strenuous self- 
denial in reverting from it to the ordinary duties 
of life. 

Some contemplative and fervid minds have actu- 
ally had to practise this self-denial in turning from 
the pleasures of devotion, even to the labours by 
which they were spiritually to benefit others, and 
much more to those secular engagements whose 
utility they deemed quite inferior. Such was their 
kind of trial : and a most enviable kind of trial it 
appears ; inasmuch as the very temptations of such 
persons have been towards the highest good, and 
their very tendencies to error have contained the 
proof of their spirituality. 

Our trials may be of an opposite and humili- 
ating character ; but it is a lesson which, in the 



NOT DISCOURAGE PRAYER. 199 x 

school of Christ, we are often early and impres- 
sively taught, and may need to be taught yet more, 
that we are not to be the choosers of our discipline ; 
that we are not to select the class in which we will 
be placed, or the tasks we will attempt, or the 
mode of their inculcation, or the sort of correction 
we will endure. 

If we were indulged in this selection, who 
doubts that we should decline all chastisement but 
what was almost nominal, all tasks but what were 
brief and easy, and involving in them some por- 
tion of excitement and self-applause ? By a half 
unconscious artifice, we should allot to ourselves 
those penalties, and those performances, which, 
while they might prove grievous or difficult to 
some others, would be comparatively light to us, 
and at the same time would foster self-complacency. 
Our self-imposed crosses would be, like those made 
of amber by the Romanists in Sicily, of the lightest 
material that could gratify pride. 

But in all this there would be nothing to promote 
the spirit which befits all creatures, and, most of 
all, apostate creatures; the spirit of unreserved, 
undissembled submission to the just sovereignty of 
God. 

Let me then, in spiritual, as well as in tem- 
poral things, seek that temper which knows " how 



200 XXII. WANT OF JOY SHOULD 

to be abased," as well as " how to abound." Let 
me persevere in prayer, " watching thereunto," 
from pure confidence in the Author of Good ; from 
mere faith in his perfections, though not feelingly 
discerned ; from a desire of that final blessedness 
which will glorify Him, without impatience even 
for the smallest portion of that present joy, which 
might " exalt me above measure." — Nor is it, 
perhaps, sufficiently considered by susceptible 
minds, how small a portion of heavenly joy, awak- 
ened by a disclosure of divine favour and ap- 
proaching bliss, might produce mental alienation 
or bodily disease. 

But we may be, sometimes, tempted to argue, — 
Destitute as I am of lively enjoyment in devotion, 
where is my pledge or token of preparedness for 
the sacred pleasures of heaven ? Is there not 
rather a fearful intimation of my spirit being un- 
attuned for the employments of that blissful 
society? Rather let us admit, — Perseverance in 
pious exercises, under continued humiliation and 
discouragement, should be accepted as a proof, 
that a divine hand upholds my steps, though it 
scatters no flowers on my path ; that it gives 
strength, though not buoyancy ; that a sacred in- 
fluence prompts my desires, though it does not 
sensibly gratify them. If we saw a youth, in hours 



NOT DISCOURAGE PRAYER. 201 

of full health and vivacity, and under some pecu- 
liar stimulus from circumstances, applying himself 
to a scientific research with ardour and delight, we 
might predict, — He will distinguish himself at 
college : and he too might secretly join in the pre- 
diction with a sanguine self-congratulating spirit ; 
but if we saw him under languor and discourage- 
ment, forcing himself to pursue his object, from a 
conviction of its excellence, although with very 
little vigour, and with no sense of pleasure, we 
should not infer, from the absence of these, an un- 
preparedness, in other circumstances, to excel and 
to enjoy. We should rather say, — Here is a prin- 
ciple which nothing can wholly subvert, a taste so 
deeply implanted, that nothing can eradicate it. 
Here is vegetation under the snow ; shall we des- 
pair that the grain will ripen in autumn ? 

Some Christians may, perhaps, best account for 
this severe kind of inward trial, by considering 
more practically the express scriptural assurances, 
that real chastisement is the needful portion of the 
sons of God. This needful portion must be, in 
some way, effectually dispensed. In several ages 
of the church, it has been externally and conspi- 
cuously great and severe. But in the present age, 
there are a vast majority, to whom it has not been 
dispensed, as of old, in the form of persecution, 

k 3 



202 XXII. WANT OF JOY SHOULD 

in fines, or bonds, or scourges, or cruel mockings ; 
many who have not encountered it in the opposi- 
tion of friends, or the malice of foes ; many, like- 
wise, who have not endured poverty or open re- 
proach, nor suffered the most aggravated of rela- 
tive afflictions. But where the external dispensa- 
tions of Providence are thus comparatively indul- 
gent, were there no internal pains to bialance the 
account, the Christian would pass through his state 
of pupilage without any decisive experience of 
that chastisement, " whereof (an apostle declares) 
all are partakers. "* And since he plainly adds, 
that our spiritual adoption would be disproved by 
its absence, how just the fears to which such an 
exemption might give rise. We may be grateful, 
therefore, (amidst secret privations and pains,) if 
our Heavenly Father employ those hidden resources 
" to humble us and to prove us," that so we need 
not question our filial relation to him, on account 
of being screened from a " great fight of" external 
" affliction." — Will it, however, still be said, Why, 
since these resources of paternal chastisement are 
boundless, why this particular trial, this destitu- 
tion of enjoyment in his own service ? The ques- 
tion still proceeds on a presumed ability and right 

* Hebrews xii. 8. 



NOT DISCOURAGE PRAYER. 203 

to choose ; and yet, if other modes of inward trial 
were offered, which would we accept ? Would we 
be assailed by sudden and excruciating temptation ? 
Would we exchange our present privations for the 
actual infliction of the acutest bodily pain, or for 
that horror of spirit with which some devout minds 
have been overwhelmed ? 

But if those trials, as being perhaps more tem- 
porary, would be really less difficult to bear, may 
not that be precisely the reason why this trial has 
in wisdom and mercy been assigned us ? What is 
it we prize and desire the most ? Is it spiritual 
joy ? Is it tenderness and complacency in devo- 
tion ? Is it the sense of God's gracious presence ? 
Here then is the point at which the self-renun- 
ciation demanded in the gospel is thoroughly put 
to the proof. We are to trust God with our all ; 
with the best and noblest enjoyments, as well as 
those which are inferior. This is the ultimate test. 
He can prolong our deprivations as he sees good ; 
but He can, also, at any moment, terminate them, 
imparting *' manifold more in this present time, 
and in the world to come life everlasting." 



XXIIL 




ON THE MEANS OF MAINTAINING A DEVO 
TIONAL HABIT AND SPIRIT IN A LIFE OF 
BUSINESS. 

A life of business, taking the term in its 
largest sense, is a more usual kind of life than 
some persons imagine. The great majority of 
men are actively engaged in secular pursuits, and 
obviously cannot command any large share of time 
for retirement. The multitude labour with their 
hands ; and the middle classes, either in a lighter 
sort of labours, or in superintending those of others, 
have more exercise of mind, with sometimes not 
much less fatigue of body. In the higher depart- 
ments of commerce, and still more in the employ- 
ments called professional, this mental application 
is often unremitted and arduous ; and even there 
it is frequently combined with much bodily exer- 



MEANS OF DEVOTION, &C. 205 

tion. Nor can he have seen much of society, or 
reflected much on its constitution, who supposes 
that in the sphere where acquisition of property 
ceases to be the object of industry, there is no such 
thing as a life of business, properly so called. The 
contrary is most apparent with respect to stations 
of public service, such as those of the British legis- 
lator and magistrate ; and of Christians who dedi- 
cate themselves, with a far higher aim than tem- 
poral emolument, to the ministry of religion. 

But, not to speak of these situations, even a life 
called private may be a life of business, by the 
diversity of engagements which it rightly and in 
great part necessarily includes. Even the prudent 
management of that property which confers leisure, 
when it is not large enough for this to be chiefly 
deputed, requires frequent personal attention ; and, 
where so deputed, the extent of affairs that renders 
this aid expedient, will include many which cannot 
be wholly devolved on others, but where the prin- 
cipal's time is also claimed. Besides this, many 
undefined and occasional occupations, which cannot 
well be avoided, though it would be difficult to 
class or enumerate them, form items in every one's 
expenditure of minutes. 

An ingenious French writer has constructed a 
systematic register for noting with great brevity tlie 



206 XXIII* — MEANS OF DEVOTION 

several employments of time ;* and the classes of 
occupation to which separate columns are there 
assigned, even omitting those which are quite op- 
tional, and those in which a devotional person is 
not likely to engage, will shew that even in private 
life, or w T hat is termed a life of leisure, each twenty- 
four hours must usually be divided into not a few 
sections, " Sleep" and " repasts" cannot be ex- 
cluded, though they might sometimes be abridged; 
while " bodily exercises" ought in many instances 
to be prolonged ; " religious exercises" are the 
object of our present remarks ; " domestic rela- 
tions," " affairs of economy and order, cannot 
with justice or comfort be neglected ; " reading," 
" correspondence," " society," have more or less 
their several claims. We may add, that the cha- 
racteristics of the present age, particularly the 
habit of an increased mental culture, and the many 
institutions for promoting the good of the commu- 
nity, present such demands on the time of the less 
occupied, that a man of leisure, except secluded 
in point of residence, must resolutely shun what 
appear to be just claims for attention and exertion, 
in order not to lead something very like a life of 
business. 

* M. Julien. Memorial Horaire. 



IN A LIFE OF BUSINESS. 207 

Nor does this apply exclusively to our own sex. 
Though it will not be attempted to detail the 
engagements of the other, observation assures us, 
that without being either frivolous or inappropriate, 
they may often be sufficiently numerous and en- 
grossing, to constitute, if not a life of business, 
yet certainly a busy life. 

All this the progress of wealth and knowledge 
has promoted. In the ruder state of society, toil 
is chiefly bodily, and, where not urged by an op- 
pressor, has its considerable intervals of passive 
inaction. Civilization renders daily life, to^a nume- 
rous class, less laborious, but more entirely occu- 
pied. Especially it augments, for many, the toils 
of the mind ; and even where these are not pro- 
fessed, and stated, and obligatory, it yet multiplies 
our mental occupations and cares. Nor do we 
question the good tendency of this ; for it has been 
truly said, " man is born for action, as the fire 
tends upward, and the stone descends. Not to be 
occupied and not to exist is for man the same 
thing. "* Dr. Isaac Barrow treats with severe con- 
tempt " the passable" (popular) " notion, what is 
a gentleman but his pleasure ?" — " If this be true," 
(he observes,) " if a gentleman be nothing else but 

* Condorcet, quoted by Julien. 



208 XXIII. MEANS OF DEVOTION 

this, then truly he is a sad piece, the most incon- 
siderable, the most despicable, the most pitiable 
and wretched creature in the world." — " But" (he 
adds) " in truth it is far otherwise : to suppose 
that a gentleman is loose from business is a great 
mistake ; for indeed no man hath more to do, no 
man lieth under greater obligations to industry 
than he."* 

Yet multiplicity or abundance of occupation, 
whether it be imposed on us by circumstances, or 
voluntarily engaged in, will be attended with evil, 
if it prevent the right performance of any im- 
portant duty ; if, from over-pressure, or dissipa- 
tion, or exhaustion of mind, we have not calmness, 
or elasticity, or strength, for what is incumbent on 
us. Different minds are qualified to bear, and 
even require, in order to their complete action, 
different measures of labour and responsibility ; 
as certain machines require to be regulated, some 
by appending a less and some a greater weight. 
Among the hazards incident to much and diverse 
occupation, one of the greatest in the Christian's 
view will be that of its impairing the spirit of devo- 
tion. One is however very reluctant to believe, 
that, unless it be in other respects too weighty and 

* Select Sermons. Sermon xv. Of industry in our par- 
ticular calling as gentlemen. 



IN A LIFE OF BUSINESS. 209 

various for the mind embarked in it, it can of 
necessity have this effect ; because full employ- 
ment, besides being necessary to the comfortable 
subsistence of most persons, is in many points so 
beneficial to all ; because also it agrees so well with 
the short term of human life, and with the variety 
of human wants, exceeding in some respects what 
the mass of human exertion has yet achieved. It 
is therefore of great importance to consider whether 
we may not to a certain point diligently and stre- 
nuously employ our time and thoughts in active 
duties, without any detriment to devotional habits. 
That there is less choice of time, and less amount 
of it in any single undivided portion, for persons so 
employed to devote to contemplation and prayer, 
is evident. There appear however to be well-tried 
means, by which, if faithfully pursued, they may 
hope to secure an equal share of the substance and 
spirit of piety. 

One of these is the rigorous reservation of a 
certain and fixed period, in each day, for religious 
exercises, which no claims of business, or of any 
other kind, shall infringe. In order to this, the 
practice of early rising, on other accounts so advan- 
tageous and commendable, is to a Christian actively 
engaged in business, indispensable. The earliest 
hour is with some the only season secure from 



210 XXIII. — MEANS OF DEVOTION 

interruption ; and even were a late hour of evening 
equally so, this time, though doubtless proper for 
devotion, is by no means so favourable to its 
vigorous, enlarged, and profitable performance. 
If there be any season when the mind is unwearied 
and unruffled, it must, in an ordinary state of 
health and of domestic affairs, be the first morning 
hour. An imperative rule of early devotion, were 
every thing really made to bend and yield to it> 
would very much govern the whole scheme of life ; 
for by rendering necessary, to most persons, a 
proportionably early time of retiring to rest, it 
would preclude those midnight toils, and midnight 
recreations, (though the latter term can be applied 
but in irony,) from which piety and health, it is 
believed, have suffered equal loss. While tenacious 
of this early hour of solitude, the man of business, 
except his best desires be dormant, will be fully 
awake to its value ; well knowing that he cannot, 
like the recluse, choose among other hours, he will 
solemnly apply himself to improve the consecrated 
moments which he has redeemed from indulgence, 
and guarded from intrusion. — Were we debarred 
from uninterrupted intercourse with the dearest 
relative, except daily or weekly at a fixed hour, as 
some state prisoners and victims of persecution 
have been, it is possible that more affection would 



IN A LIFE OF BUSINESS. 211 

be expressed, more consolation sought and obtained, 
in those limited interviews, than in the possession 
of constant and undisturbed access. Thus we may 
believe, that, where the heart really craves spiritual 
blessings, a season of devotion is more beneficially 
used by the man of business, in his treasured 
allotment of sacred time, than by the hermit in his 
cell or wilderness, where nothing interrupts a free 
and protracted intercourse with heaven. 

The case however of the most busy among 
Christians, is far from analagous to that of the 
prisoner, restricted to a few stated interviews of 
affection. We cannot forget the privilege which 
enables the most active to multiply their oppar- 
tunities of devotion ; that of seizing brief intervals 
of mental engagement, for devout thoughts and 
aspirations. No restraint, no society, no inter- 
ruption, can wholly forbid access to, a Friend ever 
present and invisible, " to whom all hearts are 
open." If we could happily so control our minds, 
that they should turn and ascend, even in our 
unclaimed moments, to the best objects of medita- 
tion and desire, then the most conscientious econo- 
mists of time would not have to reckon those 
portions of it lost in which they had resorted to no 
visible employ. They are lost, only because we 
are slow and poor proficients in the secret direction 



212 XXIII. MEANS OF DEVOTION 

of the mind : or they are partially lost, because we 
are not so " fervent in spirit " as to render the con- 
templation intent, and the prayer definite ; which 
alone could give a substantial character to each. 
We may indeed be sometimes tempted to account 
them . lost, even though devotionally occupied ; 
because we are creatures of sense, ever liable to the 
erroneous impression that sensible things are the 
most real, — that five minutes are more truly used 
in instructive reading than in devout thought, — 
that a silent petition is not equivalent to a written 
line : but in the eye of faith these estimates must 
often be reversed. If we attained a happy facility 
in thus improving unappropriated minutes, the 
fruits of thought might be far more excellent, 
though far less directly apparent, than the labours 
of the chancellor of France, who is said to have 
penned a bulky volume in the successive intervals 
of daily waiting for dinner. 

The author before quoted has a column for " the 
vegetative life, abandoned to doing nothing ;" and 
he justly observes, " wise men will be loth to let 
the sum of hours in this column quickly increase."* 
—With men of business we know it cannot be 
rapidly augmented ; but we would rather ask, — 

* Memorial Horaire, p. 13. 



IN A LIFE OF BUSINESS. 213 

Why, even with men of leisure, when the mind is 
in a healthful state, should this record be augmented 
or begun ? since the thought of our best hopes and 
desires is not a toilsome thought, and yet converts 
the vegetative into the meditative life, than which 
two sorts of life none can interiorly differ more, 
though they may appear exteriorly the same. The 
acquisition of such a habit, which pre-supposes a 
right judgment of its value, would have also an 
indirect utility, in preventing that impatience which 
active and earnest minds feel at broken appoint- 
ments, at time consumed in waiting or travelling, 
and at the nameless diversity of situations permit- 
ting no regular employ. 

But besides aiming at the happiest use of such 
inevitable intervals, a Christian is encouraged to 
convert his whole life into a kind of devotion, by a 
very frequent though transient recurrence to the 
thought of the Divine will, and of that providential 
destination which has perscribed his course. St. 
Paul has enjoined this in its utmost extent. 
" Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, 
do all to the glory of God." Not that the glory of 
God can always be the distinct object of thought, 
but it may well be conceived to govern the mind 
in the same sense as many minds are governed 
by the love of wealth or fame, or by a strong 



214 XXIil. — MEANS OF DEVOTION 

earthly attachment. The ruling passion does not 
always distinctly or expressly engage the thoughts, 
but it always influences or modifies the conduct. 
That which is not directly conducive to its aim, 
is yet not inconsistent with it. Not only in vacant 
hours or moments does the soul turn to its"chosen 
meditation, dwelling on past disappointment or 
success, and devising new expedients, but there is a 
sort of secondary and concurring attention to the 
object even amidst the most remote pursuits. By 
the limitation of them, if by nothing else, this is 
manifest. 

We have seen the master of a vessel act for the 
most part as his own pilot. His other cares and 
pursuits have been various. Sometimes he has 
been directing the repair of a mast, the use of a 
sail, the display of a signal ; sometimes watching 
preparations for the comfort of his crew or passen- 
gers, sometimes engaged in a hearty repast ; now 
using his telescope, and now in lively conversation ; 
but still his hand was on the helm, or not far off, 
and his whole days were days of pilotage. 

These hints on the expedients by which an active 
life may be made also a devotional life, are in no 
respect new. Indeed their worth consists in their 
being old, supported by the attestations of experi- 
ence ; and were it not in the view of now adducing 



IN A LIFE OF BUSINESS. 215 

such, from the writings of men of business, it would 
not perhaps have been worth while to suggest the 
previous considerations. When we cite Fenelon, 
no one who reflects on the business of an archi- 
episcopal province, will consider him as a less 
appropriate example because an ecclesiastic ; or 
if any one should, our first quotations will cor- 
rect that mistake. " It is now four months," (he 
writes to a friend,) "that I have had no leisure 
at all for study ; but I am glad to dispense with 
study, and to attach myself to nothing, as soon as 
Providence unsettles me. It may be that this 
winter I shall be able to replace myself in my 
cabinet ; but then I shall only enter it to remain 
as with one foot uplifted, ready to quit it on the 
slightest signal."* In another letter he says, " I 
am desirous of going to see you, but I have no 
time for it. I must confer with the Chapter on 
a process which I am expediting,— I must write 
letters, — I must examine an account. Oh, how 
frightful would life be in so thorny a detail, if the 
will of God did not embellish all the occupations 
which he gives us !"f These passages sufficiently 
shew, that when Fenelon w r rote of a life of busi- 



* (Euv. Spirit. Lett. 154, Tom iii. p. 411. 
t Ibid. Lett. 228, Tomiv.p. 130.; 



216 XXIII. MEANS OF DEVOTION 

ness, he wrote experimentally. He often counsels 
others not to repine at this condition. Thus to a 
friend much occupied at court he writes, " The 
pain endured in this state of subjection, is a lassi- 
tude of nature, which longs to console itself; not 
a prompting of the Spirit of God. We think we 
regret God, and it is self that we regret ; what is 
felt most painfully in this disturbed and oppressive 
situation, is that we can never be at liberty with 
ourselves ; it is the taste for me which remains, 
and which seeks repose, that we may enjoy, in our 
own way, our talents, our sentiments, and all our 
good qualities, in the society of certain delicate 
persons, suited to make us feel all which this self 
has in it to charm ; or at least we would in silence 
enjoy God and the sweets of piety ; whereas it is 
God^s purpose to assert his right over us and break 
our schemes, that we may be pliant to all his 
will."* Reflections like these, the good prelate 
frequently introduces with a more distinct refer- 
ence to his personal circumstances. We may 
therefore certainly accept the following counsels 
from his pen as the dictates of a full and long 
experience. " We must reserve the needful hours 
for communing with God in prayer. Persons who 

* (Euv. Spir. Tomii. p. 135. 



IN A LIFE OF BUSINESS. 217 

are in considerable offices, have so many indispen- 
sable duties to fulfil, that scarcely any time remains 
to them for communion with God, except they 
strictly apply themselves to its regulation. — It is 
necessary then to be firm in adopting and observ- 
ing a rule. Our rigour in this may seem exces- 
sive ; but without it all falls into confusion ; we 
are dissipated and relaxed ; we lose our strength, 
we are insensibly at a distance from God."* On 
the other point, frequency of mental devotion, 
his advice is more explicit and minute. — " We 
must turn all our moments to account ; when 
waiting for some one, when going from place to 
place, when with persons so willing to talk that 
we have only to let them proceed, one lifts up the 
heart an instant to God, and one is thus renovated 
for further engagements. — We must lay hold of 
all intervening moments. It is not with piety as 
with temporal affairs. Those demand undisturbed 
and stated periods for unbroken and long applica- 
tion ; but piety needs not an application so length- 
ened, close, and continuous. In a moment, one 
may recal the presence of God, love him, adore 
him, offer to him what is done or suffered, and 
tranquillize before him all the agitations of the 
heart."f 

* (Euv. Spir. Tom i. p. 101. t Ibid. Tom ii. p. 154. 

L 



218 XXIII.— MEANS OF DEVOTION 

To the same purpose he elsewhere says, "If 
you are not at liberty to reserve large portions of 
time, do not neglect to economize the less ; half a 
quarter of an hour, secured, by this care and faith- 
fulness, from amidst pressing avocations, will be ii 
the sight of God worth whole hours given to hi] 
in times of freedom. Besides, several little inter- 
vals collected through the day, will together mak( 
up something considerable ; you will even perhaps 
derive from this method the advantage of remem- 
bering God more frequently, than as if you gave 
to Him only one assigned period."* 

It may be desirable to subjoin to this the testi- 
mony of a layman, whose claims to the character 
of a man of business, are, if possible, still less 
questionable. Sir Matthew Hale filled the succes- 
sive offices of Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and 
Chief Justice of the King's Bench, during fifteen 
years ; and, besides a previous judicial station, had 
passed his life in the laborious pursuits which qua- 
lify for these. After having for a time neglected 
study at Oxford, where he was noted as robust 
and expert in fencing, at the age of twenty he 
entered at Lincoln's Inn, where for many years he 
studied sixteen hours a day.-f- 

* (Euv. Spir. Tom i. p. 258. 
t Dr. Burnet's Life of Hale.— We have also his own testi- 



IN A LIFE OF BUSINESS, 219 

In one of this Judge's papers, " The account of 
the good steward," which the friend who published * 
them calls " his very picture," he states, " I have 
endeavoured to husband this short, uncertain, im- 
portant talent (time) as well as I could, — by dedi- 
cating and setting apart some portion of my time 
to prayer and reading of thy word ; which I have 
constantly and peremptorily observed, whatever 
occasions interposed, or importunity persuaded the 
contrary."* We see therefore that he gives advice 
founded on his own practice, when in another 
place he enjoins, " Be obstinately constant to your 
devotions at certain set times ;""f" and we may form 
the same opinion as to the following observations 
and counsels on other points which have been 
named. — " An industrious husbandman, trades- 
man, scholar, will never want business fitted for 
occasional vacancies and horce subsecivcB. GeHius's 
Nodes AtticcB have left us an experiment of it ; 

mony to the variety and amount of his employment. " I have 
been near fifty years a man as much conversant in business, 
and that of moment and importance, as most men ; — my hands 
and mind have been as full of secular businesses, both before 
and since I was a judge, as it may be any man's in England." 
—Advice to his Grandchildren, pages 72, 73, 74. 

* Contemplations, p. 238, 239. 
f Ibid. p. 216. ( 

L 2 



220 XXIII- MEANS OF DEVOTION 

and a Christian, even as such, hath ready employ- 
ment for occasional interstices, reading, praying ;"* 
and again ; — " Whatever you do, be very careful 
to maintain in your heart a habit of religion. — This 
will put itself into acts, even although you are not 
in a solemn posture of religious worship, and will 
lend you multitudes of religious applications to 
Almighty God, upon all occasions, and interven- 
tions, which will not at all hinder you in your secu- 
lar occasions, but better and further you. It will 
give a tincture of devotion upon all your secular 
employments, and turn those actions which are 
materially civil or natural, into the very true 
and formal nature of religion ; and make your 
whole life to be an unintermitted life of duty 
to God. For this habit of piety in your soul 
will not lie sleeping and unactive, but almost 
in every hour of the day will- put forth actual 
exertings of itself in applications of short occa- 
sional prayers, thanksgiving, dependence, resort 
unto that God that is always near you, and lodgeth 
in a manner in your heart by his fear, and love, 
and habitual religion towards him. — Thus, (he 
adds,) you doubly redeem your time. 1. In those 
natural and civil concerns which are not only per- 

* Contemplations, p. 215. 



IN A LIFE OF BUSINESS. 221 

mitted, but in a great measure enjoined by Al- 
mighty God. 2. At the same time exercising acts 
of religious duties, observance, and veneration, by 
perpetuated, or at least frequently reiterated, though 
short acts of devotion to him. And this is the great 
art of Christian chymistry, to convert those acts 
that are materially natural or civil, into acts truly 
and formally religious ; whereby the whole course 
of this life is both truly and interpretatively a ser- 
vice to Almighty God, and an uninterrupted state 
of religion ; which is the best and noblest, and 
most universal redemption of his time."* These 
extracts, even as here abridged, are not recom- 
mended by a neat or concise style ; they were the 
extemporaneous unrevised writing of a man of 
business, published not only without his know- 
ledge, but against his wish. While valuable for 
their piety and wisdom, they are more than doubly 
so as exhibiting what must be supposed in a great 
measure the writer's habits and rules of life. Ad- 
monitions, in a work designed for public use, may 
occasion a far too favourable estimate of their au- 
thor's moral attainments ; of which, (as a probable 
consequence,) this volume is a humbling proof to 

* Contemplations, p. 217. 



222 XXIII. — MEANS OF DEVOTION 

myself. If, on the other hand, there be any case 
in which we may conclude a substantial and stead- 
fast practice to have been the basis of excellent 
rules, it is that of a character so firm and regular 
as Judge Hale, sketching a plan of religious life, 
not for the public eye, but only for that of his 
children and intimate connexions. 

The temper of mind which these eminent per- 
sons have described, should by no means be con- 
ceived of as adverse to a well-regulated cheerfulness 
and freedom of spirit. Fenelon warns his corres- 
pondents against constrained, austere, and absent 
manners. A fund of genuine cheerfulness should 
be created in the mind, by the heartfelt consecra- 
tion of ordinary acts and circumstances to God's will 
and service ; the habitual reference of all our cus- 
tomary pursuits to his good pleasure, is sufficient 
to adorn and dignify them all. This truth cannot 
perhaps be better impressed on memory than by 
the quaint lines of the excellent Herbert, where 
he speaks of the c; elixir " of piety, as decorating, 
and even transmuting, the lowliest employ. 

" All may of Thee partake : 
Nothing can be so mean, 
Which with this tincture, — for thy sake^ 
Will not grow bright and clean. 



IN A LIFE OF BUSINESS, 223 

A servant with this clause 
Makes drudgery divine ; 
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, 
Makes that and the action fine. 

This is the famous stone 

That turneth all to gold : 

For that which God doth touch and own, 

Cannot for less be told. 



XXIV, 



ON THE PREVALENT UNBELIEF WHICH FRUS- 
TRATES PRAYER, AND THE IMPERFECT 
FAITH WHICH MAY BE ERRONEOUSLY IMA- 
GINED TO DO SO. 

It is evident that the Founder of our religion 
and his inspired followers have treated faith and 
unbelief in divine revelation as qualities or acts of 
a moral kind, the one acceptable to God, the other 
criminal in his sight. This statement has been 
cavilled at by rejecters of the gospel, who have 
plausibly argued, that our viewing a narrative or a 
proposition as true or untrue, is an act merely 
intellectual and in no respect moral. But even if 
it were not observable, in contradiction to this, 
how greatly the wills and passions of men influence 
their intellectual acts and habits, yet might those 
reasonings be sufficiently refuted by considering the 






PREVALENT UNBELIEF. 225 

natural and proximate effects of such unbelief. If 
a chemist shew me a vase of apparently clear water 
or pure air, and say, — On strictly analyzing this, 
I can detect no deleterious ingredient, — great as 
may be his skill, and unable as I may be to confute 
him scientifically, yet if I find my own health, and 
that of others, impaired by tasting or inhaling the 
fluid, I shall rather trust in experience than in the 
most subtle analysis. This comparison might serve 
if we could only ascertain some latent connexion 
between unbelief and moral evil, without being- 
able to discover a reason of that connexion. But 
the reason is easily discerned. Unbelief of divine 
truths is a destitution of the only efficient principles 
by which the moral and spiritual life can be sus- 
tained. The experimentalist may display a vessel 
from which air has been more or less exhausted, 
and may tell us there is nothing pernicious in it ; 
but if we discover a deficiency of support for animal 
and vegetable life, we shall charge him with a poor 
equivocation. An exclusion of those truths which 
are supereminently moral, such as the perfect 
holiness or rectitude of God, and the destination 
of man to glorify and enjoy him, (truths which 
revelation alone demonstrates,) is an exclusion of 
the only sufficient aliment of true virtue. We 

l 3 



226 XXIV.~ PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

may as well expect a singing-bird to be vocal in 
£ receiver, where he has little or no air to respire 3 
as expect the genuine exercise of real goodness 
from him who has no faith in God. It may how- 
ever be said,— The physical vacuum is artificial, 
and he who creates it is accountable for its effects ; 
but the destitution of faith is natural and inevitable 
to my mind. — This we should dispute, even were 
it possible for the mind of any man to be in this 
void or negative state with regard to moral opinions: 
we should say, — Although it be natural, it may not 
be inevitable. Prejudice and insensibility have 
closed and sealed the mind against the admission of 
what is good and true : let these be removed, and 
the most essential and valuable truths will then find 
entrance. — But such a moral void, such a blank 
and neutral state of mind, is not in fact possible. 
Into the heart of man evil thoughts and principles 
must rush when good ones are excluded ; nay, the 
former are already there ; generated and evolved 
within ; and to describe unbelief under the figure 
of a vacuum, is merely to say that the mind is 
void of the principles of good, because it is pre- 
occupied and filled with those of evil. The le 
there is of religious belief, the more of irreligious 
sentiment ; and the greater the evolution or the 



anS imperfect faith. 227 

influx of this, by the agency of bad passions, or of 
bad associations, the more is religious faith expelled 
or excluded* 

This figure is indeed founded on a view of faith 
and unbelief, which some have thought incorrect, 
namely, that they admit of degrees ; but it is a 
view which the language of scripture sanctions,* 
with which experience accords, and which enables 
us to apprehend how an act of prayer may be per- 
formed, and be in some sense real, while there is 
yet a prevalence of unbelief which frustrates it. 

That such is the fact, I believe manypersons who 
practise secret prayer, must be painfully convinced, 
although its explanation may not be easy to them. 
He who is not conscious of sometimes praying with 
a measure of unbelief which it may be justly feared 
will render his prayer ineffectual, is either a person 
of great singleness and fervour of spirit, or else 
has not searched far enough into the folds of his 
own heart. For we appeal to those who rigorously 
examine the motive and temper of their devotions, 
whether it be not too possible, to pray, even in 

* See various passages which speak of " great" and of " little 
faith," as Matthew xv. 28.— xiv. 31.— vi. 30. Luke vii. 9, &c— 
of its " increase" or " growth/- as Luke xvii. 5.-2 Corinthians 
x. 15 — 2 Thessalonians i. 3. :— of its " weakness," " strength," 
and u fulness," as Romans iv. 19, 20. — Acts vi. 5. 



228 XXIV. — PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

secret, with a deplorably imperfect exercise of faith. 
We may be actuated by habit, together with a 
general conviction of the duty and advantage of 
prayer, and the sinfulness of its omission ; by a 
feeble wish, even at the worst, to avoid evil and 
pursue good ; but still we may have a secret pre- 
sentiment that our prayers will not at this time 
overcome the corrupt bias. We may pray, to 
soothe and pacify conscience, and to acquire the 
specious plea that we have sought divine help, but 
we may yet have no firm desire or design to unite 
our best efforts with our prayers, in reliance on the 
help which we seek. The suppressed language of 
the heart, in such cases, seems to be this ; — If God 
will work irresistibly, if He will check and turn 
my inclination so powerfully that it shall be at no 
cost of mine, I shall be rescued and thankful. 
I will pray therefore, although my prevalent desire 
runs counter to my prayer ; but I scarcely expect 
success. — Have we never, before secret devotion, 
had some such indistinct views in the mind as these, 
— To-day I shall be tempted to the edge of a sinful 
pleasure, or to the neglect of a self-denying duty. 
I feel how great a weight there is in the scale of 
wrong inclination. I must put some weight into 
the other scale, that of wisdom and piety. I will 
therefore pray as I am accustomed to do. I will 






AND IMPERFECT FAITH. 229 

ask for spiritual strength, and grace to be kept 
from evil : but yet I foresee that unless far more 
be given than I at present expect or desire, the 
scale of inclination will preponderate. — There is in 
this temper of heart an awful approach to trifling 
with Omniscience ; a sort of prevarication with 
Him " from whom no secrets are hid ;" which as 
far as it prevails is no less unbelieving than pre- 
sumptuous. While the mind acquiesces in such a 
kind of self-deceit, it cannot be supposed, nor is it 
indeed anticipated, that prayer will be effectual. 

Such is our distressing experimental knowledge, 
that an act of secret prayer may take place, and 
yet be frustrated by prevailing unbelief ; but the 
explanation of this fact seems to depend on the 
principle before-named; that faith and unbelief 
admit of various degrees, and may thus co-exist 
in the mind. If they were not only contrary 
qualities, but each necessarily complete and exclu- 
sive of its opposite, it would not be conceivable 
than any one under the power of unbelief should 
intend or attempt prayer. If he appear to pray, 
it must be an act of mere hypocrisy or simulation. 
But admitting that proportions of faith and unbe- 
lief may be mingled in the same mind, that the 
habitual predominance of faith constitutes an 
effective reception of the gospel, that there are 



230 XXIV. — 'PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

cases in which this predominance is for a time 
doubtful, and others in which, without an entire 
absence of faith, unbelief either habitually or occa- 
sionally prevails, then we give^ scope for a suppo- 
sition which agrees with experience, namely, that 
there may be a degree of faith which prompts even 
to secret prayer, and yet a prevalent unbelief which 
frustrates it. Now it is very important for all who 
are conscious of a lamented measure of unbelief, 
to ascertain whether their state of mind needs to be 
essentially changed and rectified, in order to the 
success of prayer ; that if it do, this change may 
first be sought ; that if it do not, groundless mis- 
trust and fear may be removed. 

The true indication of that predominant unbe- 
lief, whether temporary or habitual, which, while 
it continues, must vitiate prayer, is a prevalence of 
insincerity in purpose and desire ; a practical bent 
towards evil, while we are yet in some lesser degree 
desiring, and in some sense imploring, that which 
is good. Faith, if we may extend the former 
figure by alluding to aerostation, is like the rare 
fluid which causes the aeronaut to ascend ; unbe- 
lief, or that stream of evil thoughts and tendencies 
for which unbelief makes room, and which there- 
fore may borrow its name, is like that gross atmo- 
sphere which enters or acts as the finer fluid is dis- 



AND IMPERFECT FAITH. 231 

placed, and brings him down to earth. But the 
principles of faith and unbelief are less perceptible 
and measurable than the fluids by which we would 
illustratrate their operation. It is by his actual 
ascending or descending motion that the aeronaut 
must often judge what is the state of the balloon ; 
it is by trying to ascertain the practical bias and 
tendency of the soul in our devotions that we must 
judge whether faith or unbelief prevail ; conse- 
quently whether we be likely to attain the heavenly 
blessings solicited. 

If some professed Christians were to watch the 
movement of their own hearts, would it not be 
found, that, even amidst devotion, there is an in- 
ternal dispute with themselves, and serious waver- 
ing on the whole question, whether they will give 
themselves to God or no ? whether they will, in 
very deed, and heartily, accept the Son of God as 
a Saviour and Ruler, or only receive him vaguely 
as the w r orld receives him ? whether they will un- 
reservedly dedicate themselves to Jehovah, or 
whether compromise between him and their own 
corrupt inclinations and various idols ; and all this 
with a certain leaning and preference toward the 
wrong ? A person who thus habitually and yield- 
ingly wavers toward evil, cannot reasonably ex- 
pect success in his entreaties for the blessing of a 



232 XXIV. — PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

holy God. Could a prince be judged likely to 
grant the petitions of a subject whom he had secret 
means of knowing to be still disaffected in heart, 
still disposed to withhold or defer a genuine and 
grateful submission, and sometimes meditating the 
transfer of his allegiance to a usurper ? When, 
without renouncing prayer, we " regard iniquity,"* 
we are in effect making the vain attempt to u serve 
two," (or many) masters." Such a state has 
been aptly compared in scripture to the motion of 
a wave, " driven of the wind and tossed."" There 
is no steady current in the soul, bearing it towards 
God and happiness ; but it is like a billow, spark- 
ling perhaps while scattered, but scattered not the 
less ; dashed upon rocks, rolled over quicksands, 
lost in the whirlpool. 

But there may be a more apparent and promis- 
ing desire to serve God than exists in the character 
just referred to, and yet attended with a self-delu- 
sion which frustrates prayer. Piety may only 
have its turn with many changing inclinations of 
the soul. The feelings and imagination are per- 
haps sometimes as sensibly borne in this as in other 
directions. But the fluctuating desire of the best 
blessings is succeeded by a stronger, more effectual, 

* Psalm lxvi. 18. 



AND IMPERFECT FAITH. 233 

and more enduring bent toward what is sinful. He 
who has been accustomed to these unhappy varia- 
tions, cannot but, in some measure, suspect, even 
while he feels pious wishes, that they have no root, 
but will be displaced and supplanted, like many 
which preceded them ; — that he is himself " un- 
stable as water." For, we apprehend, there is a 
difference in kind, and this not indiscernible, 
between a steady desire that the word and Spirit of 
God should rule us, and a flow of feeling which is 
deceptive in its rise, and soon to fail. The falla- 
ciousness of this may be estimated, even while it 
exists, from its similarity to other emotions, which 
have passed away. Such a mind is not so fitly 
imaged by a wave, in the ordinary sense of that 
word, as by irregular tides, often flowing and ebb- 
ing with unlooked-for frequency.* 

Now while the subject of this allowed fickleness, 
frames his devotions on the supposition that his 
heart is right in the sight of God, he cannot 
reasonably expect the benefits of prayer. Let him 
rather, in his best moments, never seek to disguise 
from himself his unhappy instability, but fervently 



* Such a remarkable tide was witnessed in several ports of 
Great Britain in the summer of 1824, running in contrary 
directions, hourly, or half-hourly. 



234 XXIV. PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

implore of the Holy Spirit to fix his wavering will, 
and give constancy to every pious affection. Thus 
praying, he may justly appropriate to himself 
much scriptural encouragement. If a youth, who 
has given many and recent proofs of caprice and 
unsteadiness, go to his parent, or tutor, and beg 
to be assisted in some art, or to be indulged in 
some privilege, which requires the exercise of op- 
posite qualities to these, the discerning friend, who 
detects the prevalent temper even in the midst of 
his solicitations, may well say, — No ; — because to- 
morrow, or next week, you will desire no such 
thing ; you are even aware of this at the present 
moment, if you will but consult experience, and 
examine your disposition strictly. Ask me rather, 
first to teach you a right estimate of things, and 
influence you to a just steadfastness of purpose. 
When these are acquired, you will be prepared to 
receive other benefits and further enjoyments ; 
which you well know I shall rejoice to communi- 
cate. 

The two states of mind which have been glanced 
at, evince a strong prevalence of insincerity and 
unbelief ; not only sufficient, while it subsists, to 
frustrate prayer, but also disproving the fact of 
spiritual renovation. It is here, however, requisite 
to observe, that, under the force of particular 



AND IMPERFECT FAITH. 235 

temptations, there may arise a sinful wavering, 
and even averseness id what a piety dictates, in cha- 
racters essentially differing from each of those 
described : possessing, in the judgment of charity, 
a renewed mind, and having a consciousness of 
desires to serve God, and to partake his favour, 
which are genuine, and which ordinarily prevail. 
The heat, for a season, may be faithless to these 
its best purposes and convictions ; hurried from its 
most settled aims by the revolt of passion, or 
" drawn away by its own desire, and enticed," and 
making but a faint resistance to this misleading 
force. Now, when prayer is offered in such a 
disposition, there is, for the time, a prevalence of 
unbelief and insincerity in it ; and, consequently, 
little reason to hope for its success. This is indeed 
the state of feeling which I attempted to trace 
when arguing the possibility of praying in secret 
without prevalent faith. We do not speak of a 
mere conflict in the mind, but of a sort of treachery, 
for the time, among its better principles ; a medi- 
tated concession and surrender of its convictions to 
unbelief and sin ; like the temper of a garrison, 
who almost consent to yield and capitulate, while 
they still raise the signals of opposition, and adhere 
to the forms of defence. 

Whenever we are conscious of this temper, we 



236 XXIV. PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

have a most melancholy internal proof of the du- 
plicity and depraved weakness of our moral nature ; 
and such as must always induce, while we have 
any tenderness of conscience, or remains of genuine 
faith, very painful doubts as to the reality of our 
conversion ; for, its not inducing any such doubts, 
would certainly shew that no faith, founded on 
scriptural principles as to the evil of sin, and the 
necessity of holiness, existed. 

Yet it would be wrong to despair of our spi- 
ritual state on account of the occasional prevalence 
of unbelief and insincerity in our prayers ; or to 
conclude that this, their temporary character, if it 
be the subject of grief and penitence, will frustrate 
those which are offered in a better spirit. 

No Christian, perhaps, will pronounce himself 
absolutely free from an admixture of unbelief and 
insincerity of heart ; it is therefore very important 
to our spiritual advancement, as well as comfort, 
not to imagine that this alloy can disprove our 
possession of real faith, or render all our prayers 
fruitless. 

I would, accordingly, remark, that there may 
even be a temper of mind not so occasional as that 
last mentioned, and, indeed, in appearance, nearly 
allied to the two former, yet in fact far from being 
identical with those, or similar in its consequence. 



AND IMPERFECT FAITH. 237 

For there may exist a yet unsubdued degree of 
practical vacillation, or there may be still a remain- 
ing struggle, as to the entire renunciation of sin, 
and unhesitating choice of God's service, or as to 
the absolute and confiding acceptance of divine 
mercy through a Divine Redeemer, — which should 
by no means lead to the conclusion that prayer 
will be inefficacious, provided there be a sincere 
and usually prevailing desire in the heart of him 
who prays, (although combated and almost over- 
borne sometimes by opposite desires,) that the will 
of God be done, and his truth received, that hea- 
venly light and guidance be obtained, that grace 
and strength be given, and good overcome evil : 
and provided these devotional desires be attended 
by a practical effort to " keep himself from his 
iniquity." It cannot be doubted that somewhat 
of this struggle subsists in the mind of young in- 
quirers, and unconfirmed believers ; and it would 
be most erroneous to infer from it that their sup- 
plications will be vain. If amidst every varied 
conflict, the suppliant still in some sense " consent 
unto the law that it is good," if he in any measure 
" delight in it after the inward man," if he long 
to be delivered from all secret reluctance and 
enmity, there is the strongest encouragement to 
a steadfast hope that he shall be heard and sus- 



238 XXIV. — PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

tained, and that " the law of the spirit of life in 
Christ Jesus" will at length u make him free from 
the law of sin and death." 

Still less can it be concluded that he who endures 
inward conflicts of a more speculative or theoretical 
kind, is to despond of the success of prayer. We 
may, whether by suggestions of human or super- 
human adversaries, or by some inherent causes, 
" be shaken in mind," and u troubled " as to the 
very basis of religious faith, such as the truth of 
the Scriptures, the meaning of their weightiest 
doctrines, the mysteries of Providence, or the very 
existence of God. Some eminently pious men have 
left it on record that such reasonings and sus- 
picions have occasionally harassed and distressed 
them even in acts of solemn worship, or in the 
prospect of these engagements. The mind has 
been deeply agitated by doubts, and in this sense 
has resembled the driven and restless wave ; but 
who will maintain that, while u instant in prayer," 
under these adverse and oppressive feelings, they 
did not " ask in faith ?" Their faith was surely 
proved and manifested by their perseverance in the 
duty of supplication, and adherence to the hope 
which prompts it, amidst these sore disquietudes. 
Though moved like the broken billows, they re- 
sembled more truly the vessels anchored on those 



AND IMPERFECT FAITH. 239 

billows, or moored to the rock which they vainly 
assault ; though " tossed with tempests" long and 
vehemently, they were still securely holden, and at 
length " there was a great calm." 

And if these internal conflicts, even respecting 
fundamental truths, cannot be supposed to frustrate 
prayer, least of all can the want of full assurance 
as to our personal interest in the blessings of the 
gospel, be thought to do so, The number of 
Christians in modern days, who combine a full 
assurance of salvation with a spirit of unimpeach- 
able humility, I have not observed to be great ; 
there would doubtless be much oftener a happy 
approximation to it, if we exercised, together with 
a more simple grateful confidence in the divine 
promises, a higher measure of devout vigilance, 
and of consistency in Christian deportment. Those 
persons, however, if such there be, who account 
this full assurance a necessary mark of true faith, 
must at least be deemed to err far more widely, 
than certain divines of great piety who seem to 
have thought it unattainable. 

The painful fact remains unaltered by reason- 
ings, that many do entertain habitual fears as to 
the genuineness of their own faith, consequently 
as to their real conversion and eventual salvation, 
which we have reason to hope are groundless ; that 



240 XXIV.— PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

many others have similar apprehensions and sus- 
picions which do not appear unfounded ; and that 
many whose general piety we cannot question, are 
yet brought, by occasional declensions and relapses, 
into that state of temporary doubt and despon- 
dency which is their just, although distressing 
effect. Now, different as these characters and 
their respective states may be, there is this agree- 
ment in them, that each entertaining doubts 
whether he has real faith, no one of them can be 
sure that he really " asks in faith." But it would 
be a pernicious subtlety, fatal to his spiritual pro- 
gress, working the very evil which it pre-supposes, 
to imagine, that on account of this uncertainty, 
prayer will be ineffectual. It would imply that 
nothing but that "full assurance of faith,"* which, 
if it exist on earth in the sense some attach to it, 
must be the perfection, the ultimate limit, of spi- 
ritual attainment, can in fact qualify us to ask with 
success for spiritual blessings ; so that the pre- 
requisite for effectual prayer would seem itself to 
render prayer superfluous. 

Let those who are visited with such self-imped- 
ing refinements of distrust, first undertake to prove 
(not by vague and dark suspicions, but by a strict 

* Hebrews x. 22. 



AND IMPERFECT FAITH. 241 

demonstration, which they never can produce) that 
they possess no grain or spark of faith ; and then 
let them begin to conclude that prayer will be 
necessarily fruitless. They may indeed be "of 
little faith ;" so little as to induce doubts of its 
existence ; but our Saviour ascribed miraculous 
efficacy to that minute measure of faith which he 
compared to the least of the seeds that are in the 
earth; and if such a measure of faith " wrought 
miracles," why shall it not obtain divine blessings 
from Him who u giveth to all men liberally ," and 
who says, " every one that asketh receive th FT 1 As 
a farther scriptural confirmation, it may be ob- 
served, that were the various conflicts of unbelief 
or fear with weak and imperfect faith, which have 
been enumerated, to be regarded as frustrating 
prayer, then he who entreated of Jesus the cure 
of his suffering child, and said, " Lord, I believe, 
help thou mine unbelief," had no ground to expect 
success : for this language itself, and his previous 
address, "if thou canst do any thing, have com- 
passion on us," strongly imply a conflict of doubt 
and distrust, both as to the power of Him to whom 
he prayed, and as to his own possession of the re- 
quisite state of mind. Yet the benefit which, " 
though with a faith thus feeble, he implored in 
earnest sincerity, was at once conferred. 

M 



242 XXIV.— PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

Nothing which has been here advanced on the 
compatibility of a low degree of faith with success 
in prayer, is to be construed as destructive of the 
position first defended, that unbelief in divine truth 
is strictly connected with moral evil. The con- 
nexion is doubtless with different modifications oi 
evil> and these differing greatly in malignancy ; but 
we conceive it is never wholly absent. 

With respect, for example, to the last temper of 
mind adverted to, that of doubt as to the reality of 
our faith and conversion ; I think we may affirm 
that it is always, in part at least, excited by the 
subsistence and perception of moral evil in our- 
selves. It could have no place in a mind perfectly 
renewed in holiness, absolutely freed from sin 5 un- 
less we suppose that such a sinless mind might be 
subjected to the malady of utterly false perception. 
—The void of faith and piety, which we sometimes 
may mournfully apprehend to exist within us, is 
partially real : and so far as it is real, it is formed 
by that body of sin which our inward view dis- 
covers. Without doubt, in morbid cases, the spec- 
tre is exceedingly magnified and multiplied; so 
that evil may be conceived to reign throughout the 
soul, when this is very far from being the fact ; 
but yet there is more or less of evil existing, upon 
which the illusion founds itself. There is a real 



AND IMPERFECT FAITH. 243 

foe, though fear has invested him with a seeming 
ubiquity and dominion which are not real. How- 
ever distressful these doubts, and however inevita- 
ble they may appear, sin is their prime source ; and 
having such an origin as well as subject, it is no 
wonder that they are deeply afflictive. 

And in regard to speculative questionings or 
misgivings concerning religious truth, even though 
they should be invariably the matter of unfeigned 
sorrow and repugnance, which would go nearest 
to prove that he whose mind they assailed was not 
morally accountable, yet it might be asked, — Was 
there not a past period of life, when they were 
welcome to the mind ? Did not pride and sensua- 
lity formerly invite them ? Were not early habits 
of thought and practice formed, by which these 
" evil reasonings "* were nurtured in the heart? 
And now, according to the well-known laws of 
human nature, must it not be expected that the 
same trains of speculation, however grievous to the 
renewed mind, should continue sometimes to haunt 
it; especially when pride or sensuality, by the 
agency of temptation, evolves itself in the soul, 
producing (to revert to a former illustration) a 
proportionate void of faith, is it not natural that it 

* ha'hoyio-fj.ol Trowpoi. Matthew xv. 19. 
M 2 



244 XXIV. — PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

should flow in the secret mazes where it once, and 
long perhaps, was taught to flow ? 

If we ascribe these unbelieving thoughts to Sa- 
tanic suggestion, as their sudden and violent incur- 
sion has induced many Christians to do, this may 
seem, at first sight, to transfer the moral evil of 
their mere existence away from the recipient ; yet 
it should be remembered, that if the guileful enemy 
of truth inject a poison, it is because he detects 
room for its admission ; there is, as it were, some 
recess within the soul, which he " findeth empty" 
of pious truths and sentiments, because replete with 
a subtle element of evil, not wanting affinity with 
the dark mischief he would infuse. 

We may in this manner regard all unbelief as 
having, although in different modes and measures, 
a connexion with sin : and yet in perfect consis- 
tency with this, we may maintain the encouraging 
argument which has been urged, that nothing but 
an unbelief habitually predominant can frustrate 
prayer. 

And on this last state of mind, (which was the 
first delineated,) I would observe, in concluding, 
that however it may annul, while it subsists, the 
benefit of prayer, it cannot annul the duty. He 
who is conscious of a general repugnance to God's 
will, or of a very unstable fallacious wish to fulfil 



AND IMPERFECT FAITH, 245 

it, is not therefore released from the duty of 
praying ; for no creature capable of volition can 
be exempt from the duty of seeking his Creator's 
approbation, and his own true happiness. So long 
as his prayers (if offered) continue to be forms of 
hypocrisy or acts of self-delusion, they must con- 
tinue fruitless. But he is bound to pray for "a 
new heart ;"* for the true h6 quickening " of the 
" incorruptible seed ;" in order that he may 
afterwards receive those successive " showers of 
blessing^ which the Giver of life will not withhold, 
which will rear it into a fair and vigorous plant, 
and fructify it as a " tree of righteousness. " If he 
refuse to entreat that primary gift, it is a moral 
incapacity, a depraved will, which forbids. If he 
really and perseveringly implore it, the word of 
God declares " it shall be given ;"•}" and then 
without question he will gratefully record, that 
it was God's preventing mercy which inclined him 
so to seek the heavenly boon. J 

But if we cannot disprove, and dare not deny, 
that the beginnings of " a right spirit v have been 
given us, that we have some abiding desire for 
spiritual happiness, and some kind and degree of 

* Ezekiel xxxvi. 26. 
f Matthew vii. 7, 8. James i. 5. 
£ See Note G, at the end of the volume. 



246 XXIV. PREVALENT UNBELIEF 

faith, however weak or diminutive, in the great 
things which revelation declares, then it behoves 
us to pray with a more hopeful and confiding 
spirit ; to grasp, though it be with a feeble hand, 
the inestimable promise ; and by the very act and 
exercise of faith, and the aids it will procure, to 
give to it a new expansion through the soul, that 
it may triumph over the noxious vapour which 
depresses and obscures it now. 



XXV. 



ON THE DEVOTIONAL TEMPERS PROPER TO 
CONVALESCENCE. 

Not only is the human frame in some instances 
so constituted, as greatly to resist or exclude the 
painful and debilitating sensations, but it also 
appears that there are minds possessing so happy 
a degree of independence on the body, as to be far 
less affected than others are by equal measures 
of its fatigue or weakness, its disorder or pain- 
Whether this privilege be the effect of a mental 
and moral strength intrinsically greater, able to 
withdraw or control itself away from mere sen- 
sation, — or whether it arises from a less strict and 
sympathetic connexion between thought, or those 
organs which develope it, and the other organs, no 



248 XXV. ON THE DEVOTIONAL TEMPERS 

earthly physiologist can tell. The question cannot 
even be stated with precision ; it turns on that 
close secret within us, which the acutest reasoner 
should be humbled by his incapacity to unlock, 
— the subsistence of a thinking power in a material 
structure. 

But many minds, — and not among the least per- 
spicacious, — so far from enjoying that peculiar 
independence, are exceedingly influenced by diver- 
sities of bodily feeling. Slight ailments produce 
in them such indisposedness for thought, as nothing 
but the strong sense of duty or impulse of circum- 
stances can overcome. When these sensations are 
heightened into positive pain or unequivocal de- 
bility, then intellectual vigour (except by some 
special counteraction which cannot be ordinarily 
looked for) is proportionately broken or relaxed. 

There is beauty in that simple scriptural figure, 
as applied to the moral and religious constancy of 
a patriarch, — " his bow abode in strength ;"* but 
it would be no unapt image of that bodily vigour 
without which devotional energy is often found to 
languish. Perhaps this sense is included in the 
figure as used by Job, " My glory was fresh in 
me, and my bow was renewed in my hand." The 

* Genesis xlix. 24. 



PROPER TO CONVALESCENCE. 249 

bow is a delicate, though a primitive weapon. 
Too much tenison makes it unelastic; and the 
field of Cressy may remind us, that let but a 
thunder shower relax the string, and it will abide 
in strength no longer. 

How painful to the Christian, if in seasons when 
he is most admonished of dependence on the Sove- 
reign of life, and when mortal disease, though not 
perhaps imminent, is far more feelingly anticipated 
than in days of health, he thus finds a diminished 
power and readiness to commune with his Divine 
Supporter ; with Him who when " flesh*" shall 
irrecoverably ." fail," can alone be the "strength 
of his heart and his portion for ever." 

Yet, although the tone of health which conduces 
to mental animation be rightly termed a privilege, 
we can conceive that to some minds its partial 
absence may be always salutary ; and that its 
heavier occasional interruptions are to all Chris- 
tians a means of spiritual good ; if only to disturb 
that "temple-haunting" pride, which, even amidst 
the warmth of real devotion, " hath found a nest 
for herself." The snares of false worship are 
remote from our eyes and from our thoughts ; even 
if our birth-place did not preclude temptation to 
gross and palpable idolatries, few could " set up a 
golden image in the plain :" but many may resem- 

m 3 



250 XXV. ON THE DEVOTIONAL TEMPERS 

ble the Assyrian in the dreams of pride, setting up 
a visionary image in the heart. Not that these 
dreams are sent of God, but He permits our vanity 
to raise them, and would teach us the lowliness of 
wisdom by their fall. When the faculties are 
well-tuned, and the expansion of thought and exu- 
berance of feeling in prayer or contemplation elate 
the soul, then, amidst all our humiliating tenets 
and fluent confessions, the personal idol shines 
unseen, a " form" not indeed " terrible," but full 
of grace, whose u brightness is excellent ;" and 
while the lips and even the heart yield homage to 
Him that formed them, there is a covert sacrifice, 
a by-offering, to this purloining " Mercurius" 
within. But let sickness assail the body ; let a 
distempered languor overspread the mind ; and 
where is our household god of talent and elocution 
now ? His shewy attributes have vanished ; his 
wand and his wings are " broken together;" he is 
become " like the chaff of the summer threshing 
floors." Thus are we taught, like the men of 
Lystra, to "turn from these vanities," (which, 
though in our case latent, are not unreal,) and to 
bow in fainting humility before the living God ; 
" cast down" into the conviction that self is 
nothing, and that He is All. 

But there is a further good tendency in the dis- 






PROPER TO CONVALESCENCE. 251 

abilities and depressions which sickness creates ; 
whether as they respect the duties of active life or 
those of worship. 

Even were it certain that the servants of Gog 
on earth, taken collectively, honour him more as 
agents than as sufferers, still might each intermis- 
sion of bodily and mental strength eminently pro- 
mote his service on the whole, did we always rise 
or emerge with a chastened ardour, with a purer, 
steadier zeal, to improve the precious intervals, 
which may each be brief, and all must terminate 
ere long. 

Some of the Canadian rivers have their course 
suspended in successive lakes. The stream which 
was rapid before, but tinged with earthy mixtures 
from many rills, is here become passive. Lately, 
it could bear forward the laden barge with swift- 
ness ; now, the lightest canoe scarcely drifts upon 
the out-stretched waters. — But this inaction is 
purifying. All that was turbid subsides. And, 
when liberated from their bed of supineness, these 
clear smooth waves rush with accumulated strength 
down new and longer rapids, gliding amidst all 
obstacles, strong for every burden, hastening to 
the sea. 

Will it not be thus, in some measure, with 
the convalescent Christian ? When mercy first 



252 XXV. — ON THE DEVOTIONAL TEMPERS 

" opened his heart ," as it " clave the rocks in the 
wilderness/' and waters of devotion and benevo- 
lence gushed forth, they flowed it may be with a 
degree of turbulence ; their course was not quite 
noiseless, they were not unstained by the passions 
or unswoln by pride ; but He whose word created 
and called forth the stream, " He turneth it 
whithersoever He will." He has brought it into a 
wide and lengthened valley " of the shadow of 
death ;" He has said " Be still, and know that I 
am God ;" He has made it languish, but not to 
stagnate, only to be quieted and defecated there. 

And now when he is pleased to give it egress, 
and bids it renew its full career in a channel pre- 
pared for its accelerated force, will it not flow 
forth, not merely more swift and strong, but more 
deep, and pure, and silent, than as if it had never 
been " poured out" in that unwelcome suspen- 
sion ? 

Surely thus at least it behoves the Christian to 
resume his course after a season of restraint and 
inactivity. Besides having been incapacitated for 
other accustomed pursuits, he has perhaps found it 
often impracticable to lift up his soul continuously 
to God ; by reading or even hearing the Scriptures 
his weakened and susceptible frame has been 
quickly exhausted; the alleviation of pain, or 



PROPER TO CONVALESCENCE. 253 

present repose, has been more thirsted for than 
that sovereign good, which he accounts his trea- 
sure, more consciously valued than those promises 
which suffering ought to endear. As yet he can- 
not have forgotten these mortifying accompani- 
ments of disease. The healthful should not wil- 
lingly forget them ; rather ought they by express 
effort sometimes to recal or anticipate feelings 
which (except by a most unusual immunity,) must 
be shared by themselves in days or years that 
" draw nigh." But to the convalescent this is no 
effort. Those recent feelings are still vividly de- 
picted in his mind. If then he be yet in doubt as 
to his genuine participation of revealed blessings, 
what recollection can more strongly prompt the 
u diligence " which would " make his calling and 
election sure ;" — sure in the secret scrutiny of con- 
science, and by the faithful tests of Scripture ? 
What can stimulate to this augmented diligence, 
if not the uneffaced perception that some hours of 
sickness might suffice to enervate the mind, per- 
haps irretrievably till death ? If, on the contrary, 
an enlightened and cheering hope had been attained, 
and was not obscured during bodily illness, or is 
already brightened with reviving health, this happy 
state can never make pointless the striking admo- 
nitions which are addressed by such changes to the 



254 XXV. — ON THE DEVOTIONAL TEMPERS 

heart of a true servant of God. He who only 
assumed " the form of a servant," that Beloved 
Son who is the Father's " sole complacence," 
asked with reference to his own course, " Are 
there not twelve hours in the day ?" He spoke 
with intentness of " the works which the Father 
had given him to finish :" and he said in prayer, 
with holy joy, at the retrospect of his labours, and 
the foresight of that decease which he was just 
accomplishing, — " I have glorified Thee on earth, 
I have finished the work which thou gavest me to 
do." 

The distance from the moral perfection and effec- 
tive greatness of his works, to the adulteration and 
littleness of ours, is here no way forgotten : it does 
but give strength to our inference, that the fullest 
certainty of the divine approbation can be no plea 
for slighting one precious and precarious opportu- 
nity " to do God service." What an unfilial con- 
trast would such a plea present, not only to the 
temper of God's " own Son," but to that of his 
faithful missionary ; who made the sure and swift 
approach of full felicity his chosen argument for 
new devotedness.— " Now is it high time to awake 
out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer."* 

* Romans xiii. 11. 



PROPER TO CONVALESCENCE. 255 

Be the period of bodily convalescence that of 
spiritual confidence and gladness, or otherwise, 
it must in either case be a season for peculiar gra- 
titude ; in the one, that time and strength are 
given for attainments yet unsecured ; in both, that 
what was "grievous" is removed, and that new 
means are imparted of serving our Divine De- 
liverer. These will now be far the more justly 
appreciated. The Christian may become, to the 
thoughtless visitors of that chamber which he is 
about to quit, like the prophetic watchman in the 
oracle of Dumah.* They ask him, — " What of 
the night ?" — How have you passed these hours of 
wearisome seclusion ? — He answers, " The morn- 
ing cometh : — and also the night ! If ye will 
inquire, inquire ye. Return, — come."*f- The pro- 
phecy, as such, is among the most obscure ; but 
this moral use of it would be no enigma. You ask 
me " What of the night ?" — it were fruitless to 
describe the sensations of this constrained retire- 
ment, which you could not realize. Rather let me 
say, with grateful acknowledgment, " The morn- 
ing cometh." — I hope to use what may remain of 
this life's brief and changeful day, with far more 
fervour of spirit and oneness of purpose. For 

* Isaiah xxi. 11. Lowth. 
t Isaiah xxi. 12. 



256 XXV. ON THE DEVOTIONAL TEMPERS 

now I am struck with the homefelt conviction, that, 
there cometh " also the night ;" — that night, which, 
for these mortal eyes, shall be followed by no day- 
break, till they are unsealed to the awful splen- 
dour of "new heavens and a new earth." O 
could I transfuse into your mind the sentiments 
which now fill my own, and perpetuate their im« 
pressiveness in both ! " If you will inquire" into 
the will of the Supreme, — into the moral state, the 
real wants, the vast capabilities of your spirit, — 
into the crisis and the prospects of an illimitable 
being; — "inquire" now^ — while health remains 
unbroken, and your powers are unoppressed ! 
" Return from the wanderings of fancy, from 
the day-dream of sublunary hope, and muse awhile 
on those unimaginable visions which the night of 
death will bring ! " Come" now, before your day 
declines, " and the shadows of evening are stretched 
out," and accept from redeeming mercy the pledges 
of admission to that heavenly dwelling, of which it 
is predicted, " There shall be no night there." 

" Behold the Lamb of God P — he is " the light 
thereof;" he must be the light to guide you 
thither : his ransom your sole title, his spirit your 
sole meetness, for that inheritance. 

Thus might a convalescent Christian, imbued 
with the deepened sense of revealed truths, be led 



PROPER TO CONVALESCENCE. 257 

to address others, and in part to admonish him- 
self: at least that ancient warning from a royal 
pen cannot fail to be, from recent experience, more 
deeply graven in his heart, — " Whatsoever thy 
hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for 
there is no work, nor device — in the grave," — nor, 
probably, in the nearer and darker paths which 
lead to it. 

Not that we can infer with certainty from 
a past degree of inability for devout exercises 
in sickness, that this will be augmented in the 
closing scene, or even that it will not be greatly 
removed. 

The waters which are spread powerless and 
passive in the valley (to resume our former figure) 
may there be made the mirror of a glowing 
sunset, and "airs from heaven" may waft the 
bark upon their bosom, although motionless itself. 

While Doddridge, emaciated by deep consump- 
tion, was on his voyage to a grave at Lisbon, he 
several times said to his beloved wife, — u I cannot 
express to you what a morning I have had ; such 
delightful and transporting views of the heavenly 
world is my Father now indulging me with as no 
words can express."* Before his embarkation, he 

* Orion's Life of Doddridge, p. 345. 



258 XXV.— ON THE DEVOTIONAL TEMPERS 

said to a friend, — " My soul is vigorous and 
healthy, notwithstanding the hastening decay of 
this frail and tottering body. The most distressing 
nights to this frail body have been as the begin- 
ning of heaven to my soul. God hath, as it were, 
let heaven down upon me in those nights of weak- 
ness and waking."* 

Still more instructing and consolatory, because 
more copious, are the dying conversations of Haly- 
burton,t who has himself recorded his previous 

* Orton's Life of Doddridge, pp. 333, 334. 

+ A learned and pious Minister in the Scoth Church, Pro- 
fessor of Divinity at St. Andrew's ; who died September 23, 
1712, set. 37. In the year preceding his death, was born his 
philosophic countryman, who found it " as clear as any pur- 
pose of nature can be, that the whole scope and intention of 
man's creation is limited to the present life ; and that those 
who inculcate the doctrine of a future state have no other mo- 
tive than to gain a livelihood, and to acquire power and riches 
in this life." See Monthly Review for June 1784, vol. 70, p. 
428. — A brother philosopher has invited the world to admire 
the satisfied and facetious exit of Hume ; but simple people 
will still prefer the last thoughts and prospects of Halyburton. 
It may be that some refined reader will have a degree of invo- 
luntary distaste for the mode of expression in part of the fol- 
lowing quotations ; (and it would be increased by reading the 
whole memoir ;) but, besides that this was the language of 
Scotland, and of the 17th century, what sort of taste do we de- 
tect in ourselves, except a taste for fiction, when we would 
have research of words and elegance of style from the dying ? 






PROPER TO CONVALESCENCE. 259 

severe and frequent conflicts, through many years, 
with speculative unbelief and various temptation. 
While enduring extreme debility and pain, he said 
to his physician, — " Verily there is a reality in 
religion. Few have the lively impressions of it. 
— The little acquaintance I have had with God 
within these two days, has been better than ten 
thousand times the pains I have all my life been at 
about religion."* At another time, — " These 
fourteen or fifteen years I have been studying the 
promises ; but I have seen more of the book of 
God this night than all that time."-f* To one of 
his students, — a If I had you lads all about me 
now, I would give you a lesson of divinity : how- 
ever, this will be a standing witness of the reality, 
solidity, power and efficacy of these truths I 
taught you ; for, by the power of that grace re- 
vealed in these truths, here I lie pained without 
pain, without strength and yet strong. I think it 
would not be a lost session this, though you were 
all here/'J On the sabbath, two days before his 
decease, he said, — " This night my skin has burnt, 
my heart has panted, my body has been bruised 
on the bed with weakness, and there is a sore upon 
me that is racking my spirit, and my heart has 

* Memoirs, p. 179. edit. 1821. + Ibid, p. 201. + Ibid. p. 215. 



260 XXV.— ON THE DEVOTIONAL TEMPERS 

been sometimes like to fail ; and yet I cannot say 
but the Lord, after all this trouble, holds me in 
health in the midst of all. If the Lord should 
give such support, and continue me years in this 
case, I have no reason to complain."* On the 
next day he observed to a minister, — " I think, 
brother, my case is a pretty fair demonstration of 
the immortality of the soul." And afterwards, — 
" Indeed I am patient, yet 6 not I, but the grace 
of God in me. 1 Not I, should ay be at hand. 
— Could I have believed that I could have had 
this pleasure and patience in this condition ! If 
ever I was distinct in my judgment and memory in 
my life, it was since he laid his hand on me. 
Glory to Him ! what shall I render to Him ? 
My bones are cutting through my skin, yet all my 
bones - )- are praising Him.'^ After taking refresh- 
ment, he said. — " I listened to unbelief since I 
came to this bed, and it had almost killed me ; 
but God rebuked it. I sought the victory by 
prayer, and God has given it. He is the hearer 
of prayer. I have not much more to do with 
death. Another messenger comes for me, a 
cough. Oh, — I am kindly dealt with. Hezekiah 
said, I am cut off c from the residue of my years f 

* Memoirs, p. 221. f In allusion probably to Psalm xxxv. 10. 
J Ibid. p. 228. 



PROPER TO CONVALESCENCE. 261 

but I will not say so. God is giving me this to 
make up the residue of my years. The Lord is 
even washing away my body, to let see that my 
spirit can live without it."* " My body is wast- 
ing" (he remarked soon after) " like a piece of 
brae by a mighty current ; and yet the power of 
God keeps me up.^f " How have 1 formerly 
fretted and repined at the hundredth part of the 
trouble I have on my body now. Here you see a 
man dying a monument of the glorious power of 
admirable astonishing grace t v — " Study the power 
of religion. It is the power and not a name that 
will give the comfort I find/'J — He repeated to 
some ministers a former remark, — " What a de- 
monstration has God given you and me of the 
immortality of the soul, by the vigour of my intel- 
lectuals, and the lively actings of my spirit after 
God and the things of God, now when my body is 
low and also pained."§ Very little before his de- 
parture, he said, — " Though my body be suffi- 
ciently teazed, yet my spirit is untouched.' ,, || 

This is but a small selection of the many striking 
declarations uttered and repeated in various forms 
by him through the last week of life ; and in his 
dying moments, when an attendant said,—-" I 

* Ibid. p. 229, 230, f **** V' 233 ' t Ibid ' P- 232 - 

§ Ibid. p. 234. || Ibid. p. 236. 



262 XXV. ON THE DEVOTIONAL TEMPERS 

hope you are encouraging yourself in the Lord," 
he " lifted up his hands, and clapped them," as a 
token of his joy, when the power of speech was 
gone.* 

Had there been a temporary restoration of the 
frame inhabited by a spirit such as this, could it 
be rightly named convalescence ? Or should we 
better describe it by the phrase which this dying 
believer twice used, when partial symptoms of re- 
covery were felt, — a being " shipwrecked into 
health again ?"f Is it not in truth, and sensibly, 
the convalescence of the spirit, to be thus casting 
off with triumph the death-struck form that encum- 
bers it, " renovated day by day ," while the " out- 
ward man" is <* perishing," and the earthly 
" tabernacle dissolving" into dust ? What is it 
but the earnest and the beginning of that immortal 
vigour, which no " fierce diseases" will assault, 
and no hidden decay can undermine ? If — with 
submission to the Great Disposer — a Christian 
cannot but devoutly long for so blessed a depar- 
ture, offering to beloved mourners some bright dis- 
closures of " endless life," — like morning twi- 
light before a vernal sunrise, — while they gaze 
upon the image of ruin, — then is it too much for 

* Ibid. p. 236. + Ibid, p, 214, and p. 235. 



PROPER TO CONVALESCENCE. 263 

him to be more " fervent in prayers," " in labours 
more abundant," though the short term of bodily 
health, or its uncertain renewal, " if by any means 
he may attain unto" that farewell blessedness ; if 
the soul may be made perceptibly convalescent, 
while the body sinks in its last anguish, and give 
promise even in dissolution of a glorious and un- 
fading health, " when Christ who is our life shall 
appear ?" 



XXVI 






ON ANNIVERSARIES, AS PECULIARLY PROMPT- 
ING US TO SERIOUS DEVOTION. 



In the earliest stages of life we can have but few 
private anniversaries. The year is comparatively 
unmarked by memory, and all its days are given 
to hope. Even the birth-day, which is early dis- 
tinguished by parental notice, and the new year's 
day, which general feeling or habit observes, are 
rather viewed in connexion with the future than 
the past. But the memorable days which succeed- 
ing years will recal, must multiply for each of us 
as years revolve. There arises gradually a calen- 
dar of our individual history : and its anniversaries 
are far more affecting to ourselves, than most of 
those which the almanack presents. 

The period of our attaining some desired sue- 



XXVI.— ANNIVERSARIES. 265 

cess ; of our entrance on some important employ ; 
of our embarking for some distant enterprise, or 
returning from it in safety ; of our solemnly as- 
suming new duties ; of an endearing connexion 
commenced ; of other fond relations ensuing ; of 
some signal preservations, and of some poignant 
griefs, among which must be the successive disso- 
lution of the tender est ties of life ; — all these, in 
some minds, already augment the record; and 
some of the last must, in almost every mind, con- 
tinue to augment it, till our mortal records shall 
be closed. Perhaps there are those so awake 
both to grateful and to pensive recollections, that 
this unwritten register, amidst all the scenes of 
passing months, rarely fails to be reviewed ; so 
that few such anniversaries escape, without a degree 
of lively remembrance and appropriate feeling. To 
some others, a calendar thus inscribed, still noting 
the additional days which are signalised as life goes 
on, might be more profitable than many a treatise. 
It would be the briefest and most impressive sort 
of diary ; and not omitting the seasons which na- 
ture or Christianity celebrates, it would add a still 
increasing number, which must awaken, as power- 
fully, the serious thoughts and emotions of the 
individual. These emotions would indeed be dis- 
similar in kind and in degree ; but all anniversaries 

N 



266 XXVI. ANNIVERSARIES. 

have one very obvious and important office in 
common, that they most strikingly measure out 
and proclaim the lapse of time. It is true, that 
waning moons, and returning sabbaths, and every 
setting sun, and every passing hour, much oftener 
speak the same monitory language ; but none of 
them with so distinct and powerful a voice. Anni- 
versaries of events long past, which have therefore 
often recurred, already remind me how very large 
a portion of my mortal course is run ; they stand 
like pyramids on the great plain of time, remote, 
yet still distinct, and shew us how far we have im- 
perceptibly journeyed. But each, even at its Jirst 
occurrence, marks and announces that a year of 
life is fled ; that the material world on which I 
dwell, vast in my view, minute in the sight of Him 
who guides unnumbered worlds through the abyss 
of space, has fulfilled one more of its mighty revo- 
lutions. A thousand times a thousand leagues are 
but a small portion of its annual flight. And in 
the same swift period, this ever-moving spiritual 
world within, little in its attainments while linked 
with feebleness and death, but vast in the view of 
Him who comprehends its eternal prospects, has 
run through its myriads of successive thoughts and 
wishes, hopes and fears. But its circuits, if they 
may be called such, are not like those of the globe 



XXVI. ANNIVERSARIES. 267 

on which I tread ; the soul of man, as its hasty 
years revolve, should be compared rather to a 
world which, like the comets of our system, is 
rapidly receding from, or approximating to, the 
source of life and light. Either with each day and 
year the voluntary distance is widened, till it aw- 
fully plunge in the ' ' blackness of darkness,"—- or 
else the transforming attraction strengthens, and 
with each circuit of time the spirit draws nearer to 
the sun and centre of all worlds, soon to be im- 
mersed in that nearest brightness, where all its 
waste places shall blossom and bear fruit unto 
perfection, through an endless summer. How 
stupendous, how immeasurable the alternative I 

Every greater division of time, such as these an- 
niversary seasons indicate, should lead me, not 
only to meditate on my own fleeting life, but to 
"consider the years of many generations ;" to 
mark with how sure and ceaseless a progression the 
secrets of eternity hasten to their development. 
Like the great movements of visible nature, like 
the travelling of sunbeams, and the courses of the 
stars, the destined course of ages is to us noiseless 
and insensible ; but it has a silent grandeur, an 
equable irrepressible celerity, which is full of awe. 
" Yet a little while," exclaimed an apostle, glanc- 
ing through all the drama to its glorious eonsum- 

n 2 



268 XXVI. ANNIVERSARIES. 

mation, — " yet a little while, and He that shall 
come will come, and will not tarry !" " Behold I 
come quickly," says the Lord and Inspirer of 
apostles, " and my reward is with me, to give to 
every man according as his work shall be." That 
great crisis which is yet future, must one day be 
for ever past. " At midnight there was a cry 
made, — Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out 
to meet him !" Overwhelming summons ! Why 
does not the very forethought startle every drowsy 
energy of my immortal spirit ? Does it not rouse 
me by all that is solemn and all that is transport- 
ing ? Does it not hurry me, as with an angel's 
hand, through the brief circuits of this dreaming 
mortality, and bear me, as on an angel's wing, up 
into regions where none shall slumber ? 

But the mind soon reverts to that great personal 
change which is most surely near ; and the impres- 
sion of which is stronger, because it is much more 
definite. " When a few years are come," (said 
the patriarch, amidst his multiplied calamities,) 
" then shall I go the way whence I shall not 
return !" He must often have made the same 
reflection afterwards, and, perhaps, with equal 
sensibility, in the midst of his restored enjoy- 
ments. 

Every anniversary suggests to the thoughtful 






XX VI. —ANN! VERS ARIES. 269 

mind the same reflection, and neither its antiquity 
or simplicity can impair its force. What distinc- 
tion, what circumstance, so weighty, so affecting as 
this ? — " I shall not return !" — When, towards the 
close of life, a voyage is undertaken to another 
hemisphere, to a shore whence the adventurer 
never expects to revisit the land of his fathers, if 
he be of a reflective and a tender spirit, what pre- 
parations does not this voyage demand; what 
objects does it not endear; what emotion does it 
not awaken ! — But " when a few years are come," 
(may every Christian say,) when a few more anni- 
versaries have glided by, — what a voyage is in 
prospect for me! — that vast and unknown voyage, 
whence, " till the times of the restitution of all 
things," I shall not return ! — not return to the sea- 
sons of sacred retirement, or social devotion, those 
golden hours to fit me for the skies ; not return to 
that abode where alone I can imitate my descended 
Lord in doing and in suffering, where he found 
labours enough to occupy an untiring zeal, and to 
engage, till the last moment of his sojourn, a celes- 
tial benevolence. He left a world replete with sor- 
rows, (though, for his true disciples, he bore away 
their sting,) and I soon must leave it also. Then 
I cannot return, — to wipe away one tear of afflic- 



270 XXVI. — ANNIVERSARIES. 

tion, — to lead back one wanderer from the edge of 
ruin, —to guide and help, and comfort those who 
are most dear, — to soften the adversities of this life, 
or invite to the joys of another ! 

And shall I pass these quickly-circling years as 
if there were nothing to be done, to be subdued, to 
be acquired, to be imparted, before I launch my 
bark for that 6i undiscovered country ?" 

If the anniversaries which are calculated to affect 
us most deeply, should call forth sentiments at all 
resembling these, surely they should also impel us 
to seek, with unwonted earnestness, the communi- 
cation of heavenly strength, that we may be enabled 
to pursue a course in some measure accordant with 
such feelings. 

Contemplating thus the funeral procession of 
centuries, the handVbreadth of our own earthly 
career, and the vast gulf of duration beyond, in 
which all finite periods are alike absorbed and lost, 
whither shall we look but to Him that enfolds the 
universe in his parental embrace, and comprehends, 
by his infinite Being, that eternity towards which 
we tend ? 

If we solemnly desire to improve and conse- 
crate the remnant of these fugitive years and days, 
whither shall we resort for the spirit of fortitude, 



XXVI. ANNIVERSARIES. 27 1 

and- wisdom, and fidelity, but to Him that worketh 
in us u to will and to do of his good pleasure ;" 
even " according to the energy of his mighty 
power ?" 



XXVII. 



ON THE CAPACITIES FOR WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 



" 



The frail constitution of our mortal nature sets 
narrow limits to spiritual knowledge and delight. 
The organization by which the soul now acts, may 
be compared to that little modern instrument of 
music which has its vibrations produced on glass. 
Touches, one degree too forcible, would break the 
material, and annihilate the melody. If the benig- 
nant influence of the natural sunbeams could be 
made so destructive by the mirrors of Archimedes, 
how much more might a concentration of spiritual 
glory, though conveying the most sublime and joy- 
ful impressions, disarrange and subvert our present 
mode of being.* 

* See Daniel viii. 27, and x. 8, 15—17. 



XXVII. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 273 

In the sublimest revelations made to prophets, 
as to Moses, when he beheld from the cleft of the 
rock the retiring glory of Jehovah : to Ezekiel, 
when he looked on the mystic wheels, the flashing 
cherubim, the sapphire throne, and the likeness of 
the glory of the Lord : and to the apostles Paul 
and John, in their heavenly visions ; — we must 
suppose, either, (as is sometimes intimated,) that 
the body was miraculously sustained,* or, as St. 
Paul seems to conjecture, the connexion of the body 
and mind miraculously suspended. 

The eminently pious and learned John Howe, 
a man of sound, calm, and capacious mind, left 
these words written in Latin on a blank page of 
his Bible : — 

" December 26, 1689. This very morning I 
awoke, for the first time, from the following most 
delightful dream. An amazing emanation of celes- 
tial rays from the supreme seat of the Divine Ma- 
jesty, seemed infused into my open and expanded 
breast. — Often since that memorable day, I have 
recalled, with a grateful mind, that signal pledge 
of the divine favour, and with reiterated pleasure 
have tasted of its sweetness. — -But what I expe- 
rienced of the same kind, by the admirable bounty 



* Daniel x. 18, 19. Revelations i. 17. 
N 3 



274 XXVII.— - WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 

of my God, and the transporting influence of the 
Sacred Spirit, on October 22, 1704, entirely ex- 
ceeds all my resources of expression."* 

It is not distinctly stated in this very interesting 
memorial, whether, on the second occasion, as on 
the first, these beatific communications were re- 
ceived during sleep, but it seems implied ; and we 
may well believe, that this partial suspension of the 
animal functions was necessary to life, or at least 
to health, under such emotions, except a counter- 
acting miracle were wrought. — But when, from 
the dissoluble elements of our present frame, there 
shall be educed, by divine power, " a spiritual 
body," we can conceive that it will be completely 
adapted to receive the full intenseness of those im- 
pressions which are needful to perfect felicity. 

A poet who has attempted to describe that awful 

* " Hoc ipso mane ex hujus modi somnio dulcissimo, primo 
evigilavi. Mirum scilicet a superno Divinse Majestatis solio 
coelestium radiorum profluvium in apertum meum hiansque 
pectus, infusum esse videbatur — Saepius ab illo insigni die, 
memorabile illud pignus divini favoris, grato animo recolui, 
atque dulcedinem ejusdem iterum atque iterum degustavi. — 
Quse autem Octob. 22, 1704, id genus miranda, Dei mei benig- 
nitate, et suavissima Spiritus Sancti operatione percepi, om- 
nium verborum quse mihi suppetit copiam, plane superant." 

Howe's Life by Calamy, (prefixed to the folio edition of his 
works,) page 75. 









XXVII, — WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 275 

period, when u many bodies of the saints* which 
slept, arose,"* represents their separate spirits, in 
the luminous vehicle of the intermediate state, 
descending, by divine command, to contemplate 
their own sepulchres. Rachel, the mother of patri- 
archs, attended by her guardian angel, approaches 
her lonely grave :— 

" And, as she spake, there streamed from forth the tomb, 
A soft-ascending vapour, like the dew- 
That moistens roses, or the silvery mist 
Around a vernal bower. Her spirits gleam 
Brightened the vapour, as a setting sun 
Tinges the dewy west. She marks it wave, 
And soar, and sink, and fluctuate gently still 
Near her, and yet more near ; and venerates 
Creation's changeful mysteries, profound 
In grandeur, in minuteness as profound ; 
Nor knows the fond affinity, nor deems 
How soon with that soft-floating ambient veil 
Thy voice, Almighty Saviour, shall involve 
Her own enraptur'd being. Yet she bends 
To watch its beauty with a strange delight, 
While the companion seraph eyes the scene 
Elate. 

Then spake the all transforming voice :— 
She sank ; — she seem'd to melt in tears away ; 
Delicious tears ; as if her being stole 
Through some cool glade, and thence emerg'd in light, 

* Matthew xxvii. 52. 



276 XXVII. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 

Amidst the fragrance of a flowery shore. 

— She wakes ; she sees ; she feels herself enshrin'd 

In anew form, bright indestructible ; 

And with intenser blessedness adores 

Him that hath summon'd this access of joy 

From the sepulchral shade !"* 

The achievements of modern chemistry facilitate 
and elevate our idea of that splendid change which 
may pass on the meanest relics of mortality. We 
had seen, it is granted, more wondrous transforma- 
tions in nature ; so early indeed, and so often, that 
we forget to consider and admire them ; we knew 
that He, by whom " all things were made,"" must 
have an energy " whereby he is able to subdue all 
things unto himself;" but when a human artificer, 
who confessedly knows nothing of the substance of 
that matter on which he operates, or of that mind 
by which he investigates its properties, obtains, by 
sure processes, a vital fluid from a coarse mineral ;-f- 
an inflammable air from water \% and shining 
metals from the ashes of wood, or of sea-weeds ;§ 
philosophy thus seems, by her own advances, to 
cast more and more of practical scorn on her own 
incredulous question, "How are the dead raised up, 

* Klopstock's Messias, XI. Gesang. — imitated. 

t Oxygen gas. X Hydrogen gas. 

§ Potassium and sodium. 



XXVII. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 277 

and with what body do they come ?" Shall a frail 
and puny inquisitor of nature, whose hand and 
head must soon return to dust, effect changes thus 
surprising ; and He that created the operative 
hand, the inquisitive eye, the inventive mind, shall 
he not shew us " greater works than these, that we 
may marvel ?" Measure the probable excellence of 
the work by the infinite superiority of the Agent, 
and then conceive how magnificently he is likely to 
verify the prophetic words; "It is sown in dis- 
honour, it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weak- 
ness, it is raised in power." 

Those who have had the most distressing expe- 
rience of the action of corporal infirmity on the 
mind, will estimate most highly the value of such 
a glorious change ; the delight of possessing a frame 
which may be as insusceptible of weariness or debi- 
lity, as the tide in its flowing, or the moon in her 
orbit ; unimpaired by the amplest communications 
of light and love, adequate to the noblest exercises 
of the intellect and the affections, and endlessly 
invigorated by their endless expansion. 

And it would seem, that this very change which 
will impart to the compound being of the risen 
saints, a physical capacity for the highest spiritual 
enjoyment, may be the chief means of obviating 
that moral danger, which, in their present condition, 



278 XXVII. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 

would arise from a far more exceeding and unva- 
rying delight in the service of God. 

The felicity to which that change will exalt its 
subjects, must essentially and supremely consist in 
what has been named the " beatific vision ;" or the 
vivid consciousness of a most intimate and gracious 
presence of Deity. And this, while it will neces- 
sarily be an unfailing source of the highest blessed- 
ness, must also be the exhaustless source of moral 
perfection. It will be so by a directly communi- 
cative and assimilating energy; — " We shall be 
like him," (says an apostle,) " for we shall see him 
as he is." — u I will behold thy face," (says a 
prophet,) "in righteousness;" "I shall be satis- 
fied, when I awake, with thy likeness." 

But, besides this, we cannot doubt that it will be 
so indirectly, by precluding all se/f-importance in 
the possession of that glorious likeness ; all pride 
in the enjoyment and perpetuity of the richest 
donation that can be made to a creature. 

If we supposed the most devoted and humble 
of Christians to attain, in the present life, an uni- 
form elevation of delight in worship, which ap- 
proached to that of an angel, — yet not possessing, 
together with it, that vision of Deity which the 
mortal nature could not, without a miracle, endure, 
it is difficult to conceive that such a state of mind 



XXVII. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 279 

could subsist, without generating a subtle pride 
and self -idolatry. A miraculous change in the 
whole constitution of the soul would be as needful 
to prevent this effect, as in that of the body to 
capacitate it for the vision which it could not na- 
turally support. Accordingly we find that those 
who have been indulged in this life with the most 
rapturous devotional pleasures, have had frequent 
fluctuations and declensions of feeling ; intended, 
as it appears, to recal the sense of entire de- 
pendence, and wither that fallacious self-sufficiency 
which was secretly nourished within them. But in 
that state of perfection, where " the pure in heart 
shall see God" no such fluctuation can be supposed 
requisite. Doubtless, indeed, His efficacious grace 
will be, in heaven as on earth, the primary cause 
of holiness and happiness, and of their eternal sta- 
bility. Both to glorified saints, and to the " elect 
angels," this must be ever and alike essential ; but 
the efficient cause being presupposed, nothing can 
be conceived instrum en tally so powerful, to ex- 
clude, for ever, that blind and petty pride, which 
even the subjects of grace are conscious of on earth, 
as the perpetual and beatific vision of the majesty 
of heaven. 

Imagine a holy being, endowed with the loftiest 
and most blissful attainments of which a created 



280 XXVII. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 

spirit is capable, but consciously indebted for their 
fulness and perpetuation to the vision of God ; 
beholding, continually and immediately, Him who 
is the sole fountain of these immortal honours ; — 
will it be possible to imagine that being liable to 
the folly and sin of self-exaltation ? And if it can- 
not be conceived of an angel, still less of a re- 
deemed transgressor. 

Were a good man of ardent feelings, to be in- 
troduced to that one of all his fellow-men, who was 
known to possess at once the most sublime wisdom, 
and the most heroic beneficence, he would surely 
forget self, for the moment, in his overflowing 
admiration ; but, if this first of mortals were also 
his deliverer from prison and from death, a torrent 
of gratitude would yet more effectually extinguish 
all the sparks of pride. And, when a ransomed 
saint shall be for ever with his Lord, shall behold 
that Saviour who is the " effulgence of the Father's 
glory, and express image of his essence,"* but who 
iC divested himself," becoming " obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross," and " obtained 
eternal redemption " for him, — will there be space 
on the altar of his heart for one particle of strange 

* Macknight and Schleusner on Heb. i. 3, and Phil. ii. 7> 8. 
See also, on the former passage, Dr. J. P. Smith's Scripture 
Testimony to the Messiah, vol. ii. page 677? and page 323, note. 



XXVII. — WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 281 

and earthly fire ? Will not the radiance of that 
divine love make it flame as a whole and unadul- 
terated offering ? 

Surely, the delight of the redeemed in the 
adoration of the Redeemer, flowing from the pre- 
sence of its transcendent object, will be guarded, if 
we may speak so, by its own excess ; kept pure and 
unalloyed by its own redundance. There is no 
reason, therefore, to apprehend, that the perfection 
and the joy of celestial worship will need, either 
on a physical or moral account, intermission or 
abatement. 

We can indeed conceive, that, even in the 
heavenly state, happiness may be on the whole en- 
hanced by a variation in its degrees ; that the in- 
tervention of that " peace of God which passeth 
all understanding," as a pause and quiesence 
from the " fulness of joy," may augment the 
whole sum of felicity. Yet there is no proof of 
this ; and the idea takes its rise from a contracted 
mortal experience. 

Our impressions of admiration and delight are, 
in the present state, weakened by continuance or 
repetition. He who has long and daily looked on 
the Alps, or the ocean, is far less affected with 
these sentiments than he who contemplates either 
for the first time. But this well-known law be- 



282 XXVII.— WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 

longs, perhaps, to our fallen and dying nature 
only. It may be one of the penalties inwrought 
in the fabric of such a nature, that its pleasing 
impressions should thus work their own decay.* 
The connexion between novelty and enjbyment 
may be expressly instituted for our earthly condi- 
tion, in order to detach us from objects which we 
soon must quit, and which, themselves, " shall 
wax old like a garment, and as a vesture shall be 
changed." We have no ground to conclude this 
connexion necessary, or permanent. We are sure 
it can have no place in the omniscient and infinite 
blessedness of Him who is from everlasting to 
everlasting. Therefore, by a perpetual accession 
of admiring joy, from the contemplation of the 
same perfect attributes and glorious works, created 
minds would most approximate to that kind of 
felicity which is proper to the u blessed God." 

Possibly, an angel, sent for the first time on a 
ministry of love to our earth, may view the Alps 

* This idea is illustrated by a physiological remark since 
met with in the excellent introductory lecture to Dr. Kidd's 
course of comparative anatomy. Oxford, 1824. — p. 55. — 
" We know also that habit renders nervous impressions dull ; 
and hence the love of novelty." — Here the decay of pleasing 
impressions is ascribed (at least in part) to the structure of the 
nervous system, i. e. to our present bodily constitution. 



XXVII. — WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 283 

illuminated by the setting sun, with impressions 
(as to their rank in the scale of the divine works) 
like ours at first viewing a display of rich minerals 
and brilliant gems ; — yet has he one inexhaustible 
ever-growing advantage over mortal observers, if 
by each successive view his admiration and pleasure 
be, not enfeebled, but enlivened. We have only 
to suppose this very probable and delightful inver- 
sion of present experience, in a higher mode of 
being, in order to anticipate enjoyment that shall 
not be any way dependent on intermission or 
change, and to discover a new and constantly 
augmenting treasure in the gift of immortality. 

And besides these considerations, there is every 
reason to expect that, in a future state of happi- 
ness, the blissful exercise of adoration will be con- 
current with those active services, and those sub- 
ordinate enjoyments, which may occupy, in bound- 
less diversity and succession, " the whole family 
in the heavens." 

A divine of great note, and far removed from 
that class whose statements are most commonly 
accused of extravagance, has represented a sort of 
perpetual adoration as possible even in the present 
life. " Let no man think it is too much to require 
at the hands of men, at one and the self-same in- 
stant, both to attend their vocation and their 



284 XXVII. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 

prayer. For the mind of man is a very agile and 
nimble substance ; and it is a wonderful thing to 
see how many things it will, at one moment, apply 
itself unto without any confusion or let. Look 
but upon the musician, while he is in his practice, 
he tunes his voice, fingers his instrument, reads his 
ditty, makes the note, observes time ; all these 
things simul et semel, at one and the same instant, 
without any distractionor impediment; thus should 
men do in case of devotion, and in the common 
acts of our vocation let prayer bear a part."* 

And the celebrated Barrow has said nearly the 
same : — " As bodily respiration, without inter- 
mission or impediment, doth concur with all our 
actions, so may that breathing of soul, which pre- 
served our spiritual life, and ventilateth that holy 
flame within us, well conspire with all other occu- 
pations, "t 

The remarks of both these authors forcibly and 
instructively shew, how practicable and important 
it is to habituate ourselves to interpose mental 
devotion, in the frequent intervals and brief vacui- 
ties of other engagements; $ yet it is plain they 

* Hales' of Eton, (styled the ever-memorable :) Golden Re- 
mains, page 181. Sermon on Luke xviii. 1. 

•f* Select Sermons of Isaac Barrow, vol. ii. p. 345. 

$ See this more particularly treated in XXIII. pp. 213. 223. 



XXVII. —WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 285 

were not meant to be understood strictly, either in 
a philosophical or practical sense ; because many 
occupations claim, while we are pursuing them, the 
whole and fixed attention of the mind. And from 
this fact, that the occupations in which the intel- 
lect is most steadfastly and unremittingly engaged, 
can least admit such interposed prayer, we may 
draw an inference, humbling to the philosopher, 
and encouraging to the peasant ; namely, that the 
simple ordinary labours of mankind, in which the 
body, and not the mind, is chiefly concerned, are 
peculiarly favourable to that kind of devotion 
which is least artificial, least intermitted, and there- 
fore most heavenly. The comparisons which those 
writers have used are most correctly adapted to 
illustrate that capacity of uninterrupted worship, 
which we expect will characterise a future state of 
perfection. 

Devotion in heaven may neither impede, nor be 
impeded by, any mode of mental activity ; but 
may consist with all, be excited by all, be essential 
to all. The highest employments of the mind may 
offer no more " distraction or impediment" to a 
blissful adoration, than the involuntary functions 
of the body now present to thought. And this 
idea disarms the sarcasm of infidels on the per- 
petual worship of heaven, founded on their own 



4 

286 XXVII. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 

false pretence, that it involves a cessation of vigor- 
ous action and of intellectual progress. Is the 
play of the fountain obstructed by the iris that 
blends with and encircles it? Must the living; 
fountains of mind spring up with a less majestic 
strength, or in forms and combinations of less 
variety and grandeur, because each drop shall give 
forth a ray, brighter and more ethereal than itself, 
to the eternal arch of praise ? 

Such are some of the thoughts of futurity which 
revelation invites the true worshipper to indulge; 
or, rather, it intimates prospects far above his powers 
of present conception ; since even a distinguished 
apostle could say, — " It doth not yet appear what 
we shall be." The first impression awakened by 
such prospects, in a mind deeply sensible to its 
frailty and demerit, is, — Can such an exaltation be 
designed for me ? And the only substantial answer 
which I have discovered, is found in the memorable 
question of St. Paul; — " He that spared not his own 
Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he 
not, with him, also, freely give us all things ?" 
That truth, believed and realized, must silence all 
feelings which would limit the free and unmea- 
sured munificence of our Father who is in heaven. 

What, then, is the great practical impression 
to be sought from prospects like these, especially as 



XXVII. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 287 

it regards our present exercises of devotion ? They 
should surely abound in grateful, ardent hope, 
joyfully anticipating " the glory that shall be 
revealed." But if, through temptations, or in- 
firmities, our worship be still in these happiest 
qualities defective, let, at least, its sincerity be 
unquestionable, as the great pre-requisite to its be- 
coming blissful and perfect hereafter. Let it be 
solemnly remembered, that, though we cannot 
now emulate the adoration of the heavenly world, 
yet " the hour now is, when the true worshippers 
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth ;" 
that is, with the unreserved, undissembled homage 
of the soul. Except there be in the heart a germ 
of real piety, — except it be, though weak and im- 
perfect, yet genuine and incorrupt, rooted and 
growing, it were vain to hope that even the climate 
of heaven could expand that which is lifeless, 
or invest that which has no principle of growth, 
with beauty and fragrance. 



N OTES 



Note A 



that he possessed no fixed confidence in the direct 

efficacy of prayer. Page 72. 

The eminent person referred to, is the late Dr. Thomas 
Brown, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of 
Edinburgh. Since the first edition of this volume was pub- 
lished, I have been informed, by an esteemed correspondent, 
" that Dr. Brown did express, in private conversation, his 
conviction of the importance of prayer." My friend adds ; — 
* I am^sorry that I cannot ascertain whether he confined his 
views of the benefit of prayer to its natural and indirect 
effects on the mind of the offerer, or included, what forms, if 
not its essence, yet its chief value, its instrumentality in ob- 
taining moral and spiritual good from the Divine Being." 

That attendance on the professor's public lectures, to which 
I was myself indebted for many delightful hours, took place 
some years earlier than the interviews of my correspondent 

o 



290 NOTE A. 

or his friends : but it is gratifying to learn, that, either then 
or afterwards, Dr. Brown recognised the value of devotion ; 
and much more so, if we may infer, (what the same informant 
supposes to have been the fact,) that he in some sense be- 
lieved the Christian revelation ; which gives to prayer an 
incomparably higher worth, and more definite objects, than 
it ever can derive from human theories. 

This however affords a fit occasion to notice the evidence 
which exists, and which should not be overlooked in a 
volume like the present, that the higher kind of philosophy 
among the ancient heathen, fully affirmed the doctrine of 
divine influence, and distinctly recommended devotion. Dr. 
Price, in a large note to his dissertation on prayer,* has given 
several passages, illustrative of this, from their works, viz. — 
from Arrian's Epictetus, Hierocles, Plato, Seneca, Cicero, 
Maximus Tyrius, Marcus Antoninus, and Plutarch. If then 
the direct efficacy of prayer be questioned by any who pro- 
fess to receive Jesus as a " teacher sent from God,'' we are 
reduced to the dilemma of supposing, either that writers 
among whom were the greatest and most honoured moralists 
of antiquity, had no trust in their own published opinions,— 
or else that they attained a higher hope by the light of nature, 
or the merely reflected light of revelation, as to divine aid, 
and the means of procuring it, than some are willing to ac* 
cept from the plain encouragements and promises of one 
whose heavenly mission they acknowledge. 

* Four Dissertations, pp. 302—8. Edit. 1768. 






Note B. 
Every good gift, and every perfect boon. 



Page 1[ 



" Ttacra Song a,yu$ri ml Trav £a>'p>j|0C« TfAfiOV." 

iAKriB. i. 17. 

It is probable that there is some difference of meaning be- 
tween 86crig and V^p» 3 (see Heisenius in Schleusner on the 
former word,) as well as between the epithets connected with 
them : and the variation adds a poetic grace to this metrical 
passage. But, whether Vp^a, taken separately, mean (as 
that writer thinks) a greater kind of gift, or not, its epithet 
shews that the best of all gifts is here intended ; and Sa'pn^a, 
from its relation to $u/p«&y, seems peculiarly adapted to inti- 
mate, that this best of gifts, divine influence on the soul, is 
purely free, or gratuitous. Thus understood, the passage 
most emphatically, though indirectly, reproves every mode 
and aspect of that pride, so natural to man, so apt to vege- 
tate even in the " good ground," which can " glory" in the 
gifts of God, whether spiritual or moral, intellectual, or 
relating to external things, " as though they had not been 
received." 

o 2 



292 NOTE c. 

The comment of Estius on this passage, viewed in its re- 
ference to the origin of spiritual good, is excellent. Having 
made the supposition, that doa-ig and Up^a are to be distin- 
guished, he says ; " Ut ilia ad naturam referatur, hoc ad 
gratiam ; nam Su'^pa est quod gratis datur. Quo pertinet et 
epithetum perfecti: nam gratia perficit naturam. Docet ergo 
Deum esse authorem omnis boni in nobis, sive naturalis, sive 
supernaturalis, sive in habitu consistat, sive in actu ; praeser- 
tim cum de peccatis ante fuerit locutus, quibus ex adverso 
bonae actiones respondent. Egregie hoc refellit Pelagium," 
&c. 

Estius in Pol. Synops. in loc* 



Note C. 



an infinite moral perfection. Page 82. 

a part of his wisdom and power. Page 83. 



To some accurate thinkers, this, and similar language, may 
appear incorrect, or questionable. Locke has said, " Finite 
and Infinite, seem to me to be looked upon by the mind, as 
the modes of quantity, and to be attributed, primarily, only to 
those things which have parts : — and such are the ideas of 
space, duration, and number. When we apply to the first 
and Supreme Being, our idea of infinite, in our weak and 
narrow thoughts, we do it primarily in respect of his duration 
and ubiquity; and I think more figuratively to his power, 



NOTE c. 293 

wisdom, and goodness, and other attributes which are properly 
inexhaustible and incomprehensible, &c. For, when we call 
them infinite, we have no other idea of this infinity, but what 
carries with it some reflection on, and intimation of that 
number, or extent of the acts or objects of God's power, 
wisdom and goodness, which can never be supposed so great, 
or so many, which these attributes will not always surmount 
and exceed f* &c. See the whole passage (which is here 
abridged) in Essay on the Human Understanding, Book II. 
chapter xvii. §. 1, But this great philosopher does not here 
object (at least not explicitly) to such a " figurative" applica- 
tion of the term infinite. Nor, indeed, does it seem to me 
possible, for us, wholly to abstract from the idea of quantity 
when we speak of moral and intellectual attributes, although 
the idea, thus applied, may be purely analogical. Locke him- 
self, when he remarks in the above passage, that the divine 
power, wisdom, &c, are properly inexhaustible and incompre- 
hensible, uses terms which as plainly take their rise from the 
idea of quantity, or measure, as does the term infinite. And 
the consideration, that this mode of conception and expres- 
sion is so natural, will, I think, at least, suffice to justify the 
popular use of the terms to which this note refers, and of 
others which resemble them ; even although, taken metaphy- 
sically, they should be liable to objection. When we speak 
of any perfection of Deity as infinite, — we mean, not that it 
is a quantity, possessing infinite extension and divisibility, but 
that its exercise is boundless and endless. When we speak 
of a part of the stability of divine power or truth, or a por- 
tion of the unsearchable strength of divine love, (pp. 93,94,) 
we mean a portion of the exercise, or of the acts, and mani- 
festations of either attribute. 



294 NOTE c. 

But indeed it would be in vain, (as well as unwise for other 
reasons,) to attempt an exclusion of all phrases which are 
metaphysically improper or inadequate. The language of 
figure, or analogy, is made for man. It seems to be, in many 
cases, the only class of signs which he can use, and even 
when he would abstract the most carefully from what is 
material, he cannot wholly dispense with it. The terms 
which we must retain in speaking of the divine attributes, 
which the inspired writers continually use in relation to the 
Deity, lie open to the very same kind of comment. It may 
indeed, be thought, that Archbishop King, and his learned 
modern commentators, Dr. Copleston and Mr. Whately, have 
gone a degree too far in their views of the analogical nature 
of all those terms and ideas by which we describe the moral 
attributes of God ; on which point see the Quarterly Review 
(No. LI. pp. 88, 89 :) yet I apprehend thus much none can 
doubt, that they " are all imperfect expressions when applied 
to God, helping us only to form some notions, but those faint 
and inadequate, of his divine perfection." (Archbishop King, 
as quoted by Dr. Copleston in his Inquiry on Necessity, &c. 
page 118.) And this remark, of course, extends to what are 
called the natural, as well as the moral attributes. Dr. 
Watts, in his Philosophical Essays, where a devout reverence 
for revealed truth and scriptural language appears in every 
page, states " the true notion of omnipresence,'"' in terms 
which, if correct, strikingly shew the analogical nature of our 
language in describing that attribute.—" This infinite con- 
sciousness and activity of God, which are his very self, have 
no measurable or unmeasurable relation either to body or 
space, as the parts of extension or quantity have to each 
other ; and, therefore, we say he is in no place, in strict and 



NOTE c. 295 

philosophical language, though, in common speech, and in 
the language of scripture, which is suited to the bulk of 
mankind, God is said to fill all things, and to exist every 
where, because of his immediate consciousness," &c. Essay 
VI. §. 5, 

The language, therefore, of all religious writings, and, I 
should suppose, even of philosophical theology, must be ex- 
posed, in some degree, to this imputation of inaccuracy. As 
it respects " omnipresence," for example, the second paper of 
this volume would in some sense be so by its very title ; much 
more by several parts of its contents* 

It may be further remarked, by the way, that, if the above 
notion of omnipresence be just, (in which Hartley fully 
concurs, when he writes, " We cannot discover any relation 
which space or place bears to the divine existence," Observa- 
tions on Man, Part. II. chapter i, Propos. 7. See, also, 
Doddridge's Lectures, Propos. 34, Scholium 2.) then it would 
appear, that the term infinite is applied as improperly or 
*' figuratively,'* to the " duration and ubiquity, 1 ' (i. e. eternity 
and omnipresence,) of God, as to other attributes, notwith- 
standing Mr. Locke's distinction; if it involve (as he sup- 
poses,) the idea of quantity* to which, according to those 
authors, the divine existence has no relation. Yet this term 
is not wholly discarded by the most recent and accurate theo- 
logians : it is useful and expressive; and, to say that it is but 
analogical, is only to say what may equally be said respecting 
a great portion of the other language of Christian divines, 
and of the Scriptures. 

But, that these thoughts may not be unapplied to a prac- 

* But see Note D, page 303. 



296 NOTE c. 

tical use, which, it is conceived, directly arises from them, 
(and which, if well founded, may of itself excuse their having 
been pursued at some length,) I conclude by suggesting, that 
the great proportion of figure, and especially analogical 
figure, which enters necessarily into the very formation of 
human thought and language, very much weakens the objec- 
tion made against the truth of the Old Testament, on account 
of what may be termed its rude and popular, and inaccurate 
way of representing great phenomena and sublime truths, and 
particularly on account of those descriptions of the Deity 
and the divine acts, where the analogy is taken from the 
human body, 

A polished taste is very susceptible, (and perhaps may, 
even critically speaking, be owr-sensitive,) as to the difference 
between figures which are thought appropriate and refined, 
and such as are felt to be quite the reverse. But if we grant 
that all analogical expressions are imperfect ; and extremely 
so, in reference to what is divine; then the most splendid 
and the most undignified which Scripture offers, are not to 
be contrasted, but only compared; as being utensils of the 
same kind, taken from different parts of that same narrow 
range of types or signs for indicating truth to man, of which 
alone his present knowledge admits the use. 

Mankind must be taught the greatest truths through the 
exhibition of some kind of images ; they may fancy, at a 
certain stage of refinement, that these images, if they were 
really set forth by the Divine Teacher, would needs all have 
been (as it were) of pure crystal, or even of lambent flame ; 
and in no instance of homely wood, or earth, or miry clay ; 
forgetting that there would be still an inconceivable difference, 
not only between the meanest, but the most brilliant images 



NOTE c. 297 

that could be offered to the human faculties, and the reality 
of the divine things denoted by them. 

An ancient geometer, demonstrating profound and beau- 
tiful theorems, may have chosen sometimes to trace his 
diagrams on the mud of the Nile, or in the sweepings of his 
lecture-room; we can suppose a young student, who looked 
on them, to say,— If these theorems had been from a master's 
hand, and true and important in themselves, they would not 
have been drawn thus meanly ;— we can also suppose the phi- 
losopher to ask him, with scorn,— How much more mathe- 
matical truth or beauty would there have been, had they 
been traced on papyrus, or in gold-dust ? 

The topic, indeed, admits of several other arguments ; but 
this one, I think, is not inconsiderable : it might, if the 
present note had not exceeded its designed limits, be more 
fully developed ; and perhaps, also, more variously applied, 
in defence of scriptural representations. 



o 3 



Note D. 



works which are, in some sense, notwithstanding 

their magnificence, finite. 

Page 89. 

even though the multitude of intelligent or sentient 



beings should be not infinite, which, understanding that word 
in the sense of ever-growing, or increasing without end, we 
can be no way certain that it will not be. 

Page 114. 

Matter, as to its extension, must be finite, unless we 
would excuse a vacuum ; it is also contradictory to speak of 
an actually existing infinite number. But in admitting the 
infinite divisibility of matter, which is as demonstrable as a 
vacuum, we admit an endless series of parts in the smallest 
known body ; which, I apprehend, sufficiently shews, that 
the notion of a never-ending multiplication of bodies is not 
contradictory. The reflection, trite as it is, should not here 
be omitted, how ill it becomes us rashly to deny what is 
above reason, while infinitude meets and confounds us in all 
things, "from the least to the greatest," as much in contem- 
plating an atom as the universe ; and, while mysteries, not 
less inscrutable, attach to the existence of body, than to that 
of spirit. The words of Locke are remarkable : — " I would 



NOTE D. 299 

fain have instanced* any thing in our notion of [spirit, more 
perplexed, or nearer a contradiction, than the very notion of 
body includes in it ; the divisibility in infinitum of any finite 
extension, involving us, whether we grant or deny it, in con- 
sequences impossible to be explicated or made consistent." 
(Essay, Book II. chapter xxiii. §, 31. See, also, the last of 
Howe's Letters on the Trinity ; in works, vol. ii. page 605, 
folio edition.) 

But to return to the direct subject of this note; — the 
opinion that the material worlds, or that organized beings, 
are infinite in multitude, although it has been controverted, 
is supported by some eminent writers. Dr. Edmund Halley 
(to whose care Newton committed the publication of his 
Principia) adduces astronomical arguments in favour of the 
supposition, that " the number of stars is infinite, and the 
system without bounds." 1 (Quoted in Bonnycastle's Intro- 
duction, page 308.) The conclusiveness of these arguments 
is much doubted; indeed the terms of the supposition appear 
contradictory, except infinite was meant to be used in the 
sense of endlessly increasing. 

Dr. Hartley, however, in more general terms, and on 
metaphysical grounds, seems to suppose more than this— 
" Though no finite being can comprehend more than the 
finite effects of power and knowledge ; nay, though to sup- 
pose infinite effects, i. e. an infinite universe, is thought by 
some to involve a contradiction, to be the same thing as sup- 
posing an actually infinite number; yet it appears to me, 
that the other branch of the dilemma repels us with the 
greatest force. To suppose a finite universe, is to suppose a 

* (i. e. by the objector.) 



300 NOTE D. 

stop where the mind cannot rest ; we shall always ask for a 
cause of his finiteness, and, not finding any, reject the sup- 
position. As to the foregoing objection to the infinity 

of the universe, we may observe, that it arises merely from 
the finiteness of our comprehensions. We can have no con- 
ception of any thing infinite, nor of the possibility that any 
other being, conceived by us, can conceive this, &c. But all 
this vanishes when we come to consider, that there actually 
is, that there necessarily must be, an Infinite Being. This 
Being may conceive his own infinite works, and he alone 
can do it. His own infinite nature, which we cannot but 
admit, is as much above conception, as the infinity of his 
works." (Observations on Man, vol. ii. chap, i Propos. 5.) 

It is not to be inferred, from my having connected with this 
supposition of an infinity (i. e. endless multiplication) of 
sentient beings, the fact of the vast extension of the material 
universe, as corroborating its probability, (at page 116,) that I 
imagine extension necessary to the supposition. Even did 
we know that a created spirit never can or must act, except 
in connexion with matter, it would be no whit the less con- 
ceivable, that the power who unites animation and all vital 
functions with microscopic portions of matter, may unite the 
highest faculties of a spirit with an organization equally 
minute, or indefinitely more so. Why may it not be one 
among the countless triumphs of omnipotent skill, to give to 
some of the noblest and happiest intelligences, bodies whose 
structure is the more exquisite in proportion as their exility is 
more wonderful ? Nothing, I think, but our analogical 
thoughts and expressions, such as greatness, sublimity, &c. so 
habitually applied to mind, would make this idea appear ex- 
travagant. Wherefore should not subtilty be as admirably 



NOTE D. 301 

stupendous as magnitude, and the Divine Artificer be more 
glorified, and the creature more perfect and refined, wnen 
the mass of organized matter were in the inverse ratio (and 
consequently the wonderfulness of its fabric in a direct ratio), 
to the excellence and dignity of the actuating Spirit ? — But, 
moreover, it is argued by some metaphysicians, that spirits 
have " no measurable relation to place," and " do not 
require any space to possess ; and if there be any sort of 
separate spirits which are not united to matter, they are, 
most properly, no where in strict philosophy." (Dr. Isaac 
Watts, on the place and motion of Spirits; Philosophical Essay, 
VI. §. 4. See, also, Doddridge's Lectures, proposition 84.) 

This, which however incomprehensible by us, cannot, I 
apprehend, be disproved, would at once exclude all imagined 
necessary dependence of created existence on extension. — Nor 
can these be justly deemed trifling or over-curious specula- 
tions, if they any way conduce to shew how unsearchably 
infinite are the resources of Divine power and goodness. He 
who disbelieves a plurality of worlds, or he who even denies 
the existence of matter, has not advanced one step towards 
demonstrating, that God will not create an infinity of happy 
spirits. 

Will it be said in reference to these last remarks,— Why, 
therefore, speak of " the incalculable magnitude of creation" 
as " auxiliary to faith, and of their being " ample room for 
a preponderance of happiness?" &c. pp. 127, 128. I answer, 
— Because the fact and the contemplation of such magnitude, 
greatly promote our belief that there is an utterly inconceiv- 
able multitude of sentient beings: nay, further, render it next 
to incredible that there is not. Who does not feel the high 
probability, that, wherever material worlds and systems are, 



302 NOTE D. 

these are populous with organized and intelligent creatures ? 
Who does not perceive the exceeding improbability of the 
contrary supposition ? If a mariner, with his telescope, 
ascend the first cliff of an unexplored coast, and find it to be 
a very small islet, on which no traces whatever of life are 
visible, yet is he no way entitled to infer, that no life is there ; 
for, if not men, yet multitudes of minute animals, may be 
variously concealed, or invisible ; but if, on the contrary, he 
find a vast tract before him, and observe with his glass the 
smoke which seems to rise from distant cities, how will you 
persuade him that there is not a great population ? 

While seeking for opinions on this question, I was led to 
refer to a critique, from the pen of a highly original essayist, 
on " Chalmers's Discourses." (Eclectic Review, 1817, 
pp. 206, 354, 466.) That writer very eloquently expatiates 
on the " practical infiniteness" of the universe, and the glory 
of its Creator, pp. 216, 217. I have adverted to this article 
of criticism, (which it were well if its author would modify 
and enlarge as a separate essay,) partly for the purpose of 
stating that I suspect myself to have been unconsciously in- 
debted to it for some of the thoughts in No. XIII. : to which 
this note refers. 

The " wide prevalence of evil" is in that critique power- 
fully contended against ; and "the immensity of the intelli- 
gent creation" is adduced as a theory yielding ground for the 
assurance, that the proportion of good among the creatures' 
of the Almighty, may all but infinitely transcend that of evil, 
pp. 470, 471. 

It is true, these topics are there treated in a different man- 
ner, and, as might be expected, with much more bold and 
excursive amplification ; yet I suspect the impression made 



NOTE D. 303 

by them, though at an interval of some years, may have 
originated the humbler thoughts which are here offered. It 
seems the part of honesty to point out this when discovered, 
although it may need little or no excuse : for what ordinary 
writer can hope to escape (or, indeed, could afford to dis- 
pense with) the unconscious borrowing of thoughts and lan- 
guage ? How can he fail to be— with all due contempt for 
plagiarism — the unwitting editor of other men's notions? 
And, in proportion as an indistinct memory precludes temp- 
tation to literary theft, it augments the hazard of these his 
unperceived appropriations or adhesions. He presents them in 
new combinations, wholly ignorant of their original sources ; 
and it is very rarely that they can, with any probability, be 
retraced; but, sooner or later, they have been drawn from 
the public stock. They are like old fragments of plate 
brought into the goldsmith's store, melted up and re-produced 
in shapes somewhat novel ; though even their new form will 
be influenced by the fashion of the age, or the style of some 
leading artist whom the age applauds. It were all well if 
no baser metals came into the amalgam. In other words, it 
were well if we could borrow thoughts from the great minds 
of our own and other times, rather than from the great com- 
mon-place book of ordinary literature. In the one case, we 
may hope for a good portion of ore from the vein ; in the 
other, we get but the worn currency which " may be slave to 
thousands.'" 

On the chief topic of this note, I have rather wished to 
adduce opinions than decide on them. But it may be re- 
marked, that true or proper infinity appears to be justly 
viewed as having no relation to quantity; i. e. to space, num- 
ber, or duration. Fenelon asserts, " L'infini ne peut jamais 



304 NOTE D. 

etre ni successif ni divisible." (Tr. de l'Exist. de Dieu, §. 75, 
pp. 175, 174, et 281 — 341;) and Watts has the position, 
" No actual infinite can consist of finite parts." (Ontolog. c. 
17.) Locke, on the other hand, who appears to regard space 
and duration as real and infinite, (Essay, Book 2, c. 13. f . 20, 
and c. 1 5, §. 2, 3,) speaks of time and place as " portions of 
those infinite quantities," — " distinguishable portions of those 
infinite abysses of space and duration," &c. (Book 2, c. 15, 
§. 5,6,7; and see the quotations in Note C above, pp. 292 — 
296.) Yet it is demonstrated, that simple infinity excludes 
all bounds, and can neither be augmented nor diminished. 
(See Fenelon, ubi supra.) How far, therefore this proper 
infinity can be ascribed to space or duration, (considered as 
divisible and successive, or as any thing else than the divine 
existence itself ]) I leave to stronger minds to solve. 

It is remarkable, that our idea of infinite, and use of the 
term, in reference to number or magnitude, and to division 
of parts, has something in it directly contrary to that notion 
of simple infinity. Instead of supposing " all addition impos- 
sible/' it means, to use the words of Locke, " number always 
to be added" or " endless addibility" (Essay, Book II. c. xxix. 
§. 16.) When we make a supposition therefore, of <: infinite 
multitude," or "infinite parts,'') we mean something essen- 
tially different from (and in one respect, contrary to) the 
simple infinity which must be ascribed to Deity; for we 
mean future endless augmentation of number ; at least, this 
is our only clear idea. We cannot intelligibly to ourselves 
hold the opinion, that there actually is, or has been, " an 
infinite multitude of sentient beings ;" but it may be quite 
intelligibly held, that there will be an endless (and in that 
sense infinite) multiplication of such ; or, in other words, that 



NOTE D. 305 

the multitude of sentient beings to be created, is absolutely 
never ending. This is the improper sense of infinite ; is it 
not, however, sanctioned by philosophers in their phrase, — 
infinite divisibility ? 

It involves the idea of endless succession and futurity. It 
is infinite, if we may so speak, always in thefuture tense ; and 
it illustrates the near and wonderful relation which philoso- 
phers have noticed between the ideas of time and space, or 
duration and expansion. For this sense of infinite coincides 
with one scriptural and theological use of the word eternal, 
as describing the future endless life promised to Christians ; 
that is, an endless future accession of duration, an " eternity 
a parte post/' (which expression, also, Fenelon affirms, is 
improper). Of the Deity, it may be said, He is eternal; or, 
rather, He is ; " Cette existence infinie est toujours toute 
entiere." — " En lui rien ne dure, parceque rien ne passe : 
tout est fixe : tout est a la fois : tout est immobile." (Ibid. 
p tie 2 e p. 527.) Of creatures, it can never be said, here or 
hereafter, they are eternal, but only they shall exist without 
end.* It is in a like sense only that I can conceive of " infi- 
nite multitude;" though I would not, therefore, positively 
deny that it can exist in an actual or present sense, (however 
incomprehensible,) as Dr. Hartley thinks it may. But it is 
important to remark, that even the intelligible idea of it 
above proposed, gives scope for an endlessly augmenting ex- 
cess of good over evil, as rapid as the progressive possibilities 
of things (which may be constantly and immensely changing 

* Dr. Bently calls this an existence " 'potentially infinite," 
and discusses the nature of such infinitude. (See his Sixth 
Sermon at Boyle's Lecture, p. 21. edit. 1692.) 



306 NOTE E. 

towards the better) can admit, and as boundless as a never- 
ending duration can receive. Well, however, did the excel- 
lent Watts acknowledge — " We are finite creatures, and we 
soon lose ourselves among infinites." Most happy those who 
can join in the anticipation with which he devoutly and 
beautifully closes the preface to his Philosophical Essays: 
" We shall change this dusky region for a brighter. Fare- 
well, books, and disputes, and dark notions, and lame hypo- 
theses ! We enter into the state of unbodied minds; we are 
surrounded with the light of paradise ; we shall see ourselves 
and our fellow-spirits ; there we shall commence our happy 
immortality in those pure and exquisite delights of unerring 
contemplation, and undecaying love." 



Note E. 



which assures us of the moral perfection of God. 

Page 118, 



u Here." says Hartley, (Observations on Man, Part II. 
chapter i. Proposition 4.) * revelation comes in aid of reason, 
and affords inexpressible satisfaction to all earnest and well- 
disposed persons, even in this age, after natural philosophy, 
and the knowledge of natural religion, have been so far ad- 
vanced. In the early ages of the world, divine revelation 
must have been almost the only influencing evidence of the 
moral attributes of God." To which we may add, — So must 



NOTE F. 307 

it, at least to the great mass of mankind, still continue to be. 
We do not here discuss the real effects which the study of 
natural religion and philosophy (apart from revelation) may 
have produced on the creed of the highly cultivated few ; but 
it is clear, that, with respect to the many, there can have been 
no material accession of " influencing evidence" from these 
sources. 



Note F. 



The Lord of the unerring bow, &c. Page 185. 

It may be proper to notice, that these quotations are not 
(as their connection would seem to intimate) from Homer, 
or his translators ; but from the brilliant descriptive stanzas 
of a modern poet. 

What Christian, who can feel the power and fascination of 
that poet's genius, but mourns that it was not consecrated, 
like Milton's, to heavenly truth and immortal hope : — and 
asks, as he contemplates the fine susceptibility which that 
mind has evinced, of all which is fair and glorious, — Why 
should it be yet too late ? — It is true, the past is painfully 
irrevocable. If the Horatian warning, " Nescit vox missa 
reverti," be important in its own critical sense, how incom- 
parably more so in a moral and Christian application. — Yet 
few have been more distinguished as ardent and efficient 



308 NOTE F. 

friends to the best cause, than some who, in after life, had to 
look back, with deep compunction, on the words, if not 
writings, of other years.* 

I know no fact, and no sentiments, more worthy to be con- 
sidered, by all who have hitherto yielded up superior faculties 
and feelings to religious and moral scepticism, than the 
changed views and last reflections of the French poet and 
philosopher, De La Harpe; of which I subjoin a few extracts, 
and a translation : because they are too valuable to be 
allowably concealed from any reader by the want of a version : 
while the beauty of the original disinclines me to withhold 
that from other readers. He thus writes of himself: — 

" Un homme a ete assez malheureux pour oublier pendant 
quarante ans, la loi d'un Dieu dont il reconnaissait l'exis- 
tence, et pour blasphemer la religion sainte que ce Dieu est 
venu lui-meme apporter aux hommes. Ce meme Dieu, par 
un miracle de sa grace, le touche en un moment par la lecture 
des livres saints, qu'il avait toujours negligee ; Dieu eclaire 

son esprit et parle a son cceur .En songeant 

a la justice de Dieu, il est pret a douter de sa misericorde ; 

* The first edition of this work (and of the above note) was 
printed in the closing days of 1823. Less than four months 
afterwards,* the grave received the mortal remains of the 
poet, smitten in his prime of manhood, and amidst a new career 
of fame. — If it be but a truism which that grave repeats, it is 
nevertheless terrible and much forgotten ; — lie who writes, or 
speaks, what he will one day " wish to blot," may be cut off— 
by a stroke already impending — from every means of reparation 
to mankind ; and too probably, by its suddenness, from recon- 
ciliation with his Maker ! 

* Lord Byron died April 19, 1824. 



NOTE F. 309 

mais l'Evangile lui repond par la voix d'un de ses apotres : 
Dieu a tant aime les hommes, quil leur a envoy e sonfils, et Va 
livre a la mort pour eux. C'est alors que le pecheur penitent 
comprend cet ineffable mystere^ sa raison orgueilleuse et 
aveugle l'avait rejete ; son cceur contrit et humilie le sent 
profondement. II croit, parcequ'il aime ; il croit. parcequil 
est reconnoissant ; il croit, parcequil voit toute la bonte du 
Createur, proportionnee aux miseres de la creature. O mon 
Dieu ! tous vos mysteres sont des mysteres d'amour, et c'est 
pour cela qu'ils sont divins I I/homme ninventerait pas 
ainsi ; cela est trop au dessus de lui ; un Dieu seul a pu nous 

le dire, parcequ'un Dieu seui a pu le faire 

Oh mon Dieu ! je sais bien que ces verites que j'ecris sont la 
condamnation de ma vie entiere. C'est vous qui me les avez 
apprises, et je les avais oubliees si long-temps, et je me croyais 
eclaire ! Tel est done Taveuglement des passions, que je ne 
comprenais pas meme ce qui me parait aujourd'hui si simple 
et si clair ! Vous avez daigne m'ouvrir les yeux en un 
moment. Achevez, oh mon Dieu ! Apres m'avoir fait con- 
naitre mes fautes, apprenez-moi a les reparer autant qu'il est 
en moi ; donnez-m'en le temps et les moyens si tel est Pordre 
de vos misericordes, et que Taveu que je fais ici puisse etre 
utile a mes freres, dont aucun n'a ete un aussi grand pecheur 
que moi. ,, 

(De La Harpe.— c( Fragmens d'une Apologie de la Religion 
Chretienne," appended to his " Lycee, or Cours de 
Litterature," pp. 329 and 332, duod. edit. 1815.) 

" A human being was so unhappy, as to forget, through 
forty years, the law of a God whose existence he recognized, 
and to blaspheme that holy religion which this God himself 
was manifested to present to men. This same God, by a 



310 NOTE F. 

miracle of his grace, touches him instantaneously, in the 
perusal of those sacred books which he had always before 
neglected. God illuminating his mind, and speaks to his 

heart In thinking of the 

justice of the Deity, he is at first ready to doubt of his com- 
passion : but the 'gospel answers him by the voice of an 
apostle * God so loved the world/ that c He spared not 
his own son, but delivered him up for us all/ — It is then 
that the penitent sinner apprehends this ineffable mystery. 
His proud and blind reason had rejected it : c his humble and 
contrite heart profoundly feels it. He believes, because he 
loves: — because he is grateful; —because he sees all the 
goodness of the Creator, proportioned to the miseries of 
the creature. Oh my God, all thy mysteries are mysteries of 
love, and therefore are they indeed divine ! Man would 
not thus invent : it is God alone who could thus speak, be- 
cause it is He alone who could thus act 

.... Oh, my God, I know too well that the truths which 
I now write form the condemnation of my entire life. Thou 
didst instruct me in them ; and I forgot them so long, yet 
imagined myself enlightened. Siich is the blindness pro- 
duced by passions, that I did not even understand what now 
appears to me so simple and so clear ! Thou hast deigned 
to open mine eyes in a moment ! Perfect thy work, oh my 
God ! since thou hast given me the knowledge of my of- 
fences, teach me, as much as in me lies, to repair and to cor- 
rect them ; grant me time and means for this, if such be the 
order of thy mercies, and let the avowal which I here make 
be useful to my brethren,* of whom none has been so great 
a sinner as myself." 

* He here refers to the French literati and men of science 
with whom he was associated. 



POSTSCRIPT 



TO NOTE R 

(FIRST ADDED IN THE SECOND EDITION.) 

The foregoing note was designed to be applicable to scep- 
tical and immoral writers generally; and, should it come 
under the eye of such, which is the less unlikely on account 
of the correspondence now appended to it, their thoughtful 
perusal of the quotation which it offers, may, without vanity, 
be asked. 

It was however chiefly prompted by a peculiar interest 
respecting the character and genius of the late Lord Byron, 
long since excited in my mind by his writings, and much 
heightened for the last two years, by a private correspondence 
with him on a religious topic which occurred toward the 
close of 1821. 

There could not, indeed, be the slightest expectation, that 
a volume so little known as this, and on such a class of sub- 
jects, would be seen by Lord Byron, except expressly ad- 
dressed to his residence ; but I had a half-formed intention 
(induced by the tenour of the correspondence referred to) of 
so presenting it to his notice. This was checked, partly by 
the distant, uncertain, and agitating scenes of war, in which 



312 POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 

the last months of his life were spent, and not less by the 
opinion that any thing indirectly aimed at himself, in print, 
and in a devotional publication, might prove repulsive, and 
create a personal prejudice adverse to the past or future in- 
fluence of any -private communication. Now that his memo- 
rable career has been so suddenly terminated, and all future 
opportunities are awfully precluded, this hesitation is matter 
of regret ; and I can only recur to the presumed inefficacy 
or ill effect of the attempt, as alleviating that regret,— not as 
a sufficient reason for the omission. 

During Lord Byron's life, his letter, and that which occa- 
sioned it, were, and still would have been, only shewn to a 
few friends, and that in strict confidence; but my impression, 
since his decease, that it has now become a duty to publish 
them, is confirmed by some of those friends. 

The reasons which prevail with me to do so, as well as 
some objections which those reasons overweigh, will be best 
understood after the perusal of the copies subjoined. 






TO 



THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 



LORD BYRON, 



PISA. 



Frome, Somerset, November 21, 1821. 

My Lord, 
More than two years since, a lovely and beloved wife was 
taken from me, by lingering disease, after a very short union. 
She possessed unvarying gentleness and fortitude, and a 
piety so retiring as rarely to disclose itself in words, but so 
influential, as to produce uniform benevolence of conduct. 
In the last hour of life, after a farewell look on a lately born 
and only infant, for whom she had evinced inexpressible 

affection, her last whispers were, " God's happiness ! 

God's happiness!''* Since the second anniversary of her 

* It has been suggested to me, that this expression may 
possibly, to me readers, appear obscure. The ideas which it 
solemnly conveyed to myself, and which I believe to have been 
in the mind of the dying Christian who uttered it, are such as 

P 



314 POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F, 

decease, I have read some papers, which no one had seen 
during her life, and which contain her most secret thoughts. 
I am induced to communicate to your Lordship a passage 
from these papers, which, there is no doubt, refers to your- 
self; as I have more than once heard the writer mention 
your agility on the rocks at Hastings. 



" Oh, my God, I take encouragement from the assurance 
of thy word, to pray to Thee in behalf of one for whom I 
have lately been much interested.* May the person to whom 
I allude, (and who is now, we fear, as much distinguished for 
his neglect of Thee as for, the trancendant talents Thou hast 
bestowed on him,) be awakened to a sense of his own danger, 

these : — " I am early summoned to quit all that happiness 
which consists in the exercise of affection towards those whom 
I tenderly love, and in the enjoyment of theirs ; but, — oh, 
blissful consolation ! — I am only called hence to that infinitely 
superior happiness ' which God hath prepared for them that 
love him,' and indeed to the participation of his own happiness, 
which is perfect and eternal !" 

* Such a Christian interest for Lord Byron's character, cre- 
ated by the sublime and powerful talents committed to him, 
and discovered in his works, was doubtless shared by many ; 
but, it may be believed, that comparatively few were led by 
it, like the writer of this prayer, to special intercession for an 
individual with whom they had not even the slight connexion 
of acquaintance. How excellent would be the habit, so re- 
commended to us by scriptural examples, of giving to bene- 
volent wishes, which may now pass silently, and often slightly, 
through the mind, the more fixed impress and impulse of 
mental petition ! 



POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 315 

and led to seek that peace of mind in a proper sense of reli- 
gion, which he has found this world's enjoyments unable to 
procure ! Do Thou grant that his future example may be 
productive of far more extensive benefit than his past con- 
duct and writings have been of evil ; and may the Sun of 
Righteousness, which, we trust, will, at some future period, 
arise on him, be bright in proportion to the darkness of those 
clouds which guilt has raised around him, and the balm 
which it bestows, healing and soothing in proportion to the 
keenness of that agony which the punishment of his vices has 
inflicted on him ! May the hope that the sincerity of my 
own efforts for the attainment of holiness, and the approval 
of my own love to the great Author of religion, will render 
this prayer, and every other for the welfare of mankind, more 
efficacious, — cheer me in the path of duty ; but, let me not 
forget, that, while we are permitted to animate ourselves to 
exertion, by every innocent motive, these are but the lesser 
streams which may serve to increase the current, but which, 
deprived of the grand fountain of good, (a deep conviction of 
inborn sin, and firm belief in the efficacy of Christ's death 
for the salvation of those who trust in him, and really seek 
to serve him,) would soon dry up, and leave us as barren of 
every virtue as before." 
" July 31, 1814. 
" Hastings." 



There is nothing, my Lord, in this extract, which, in a 
literary sense, can at all interest you ; but it may, perhaps, 
appear to you worthy of reflection, how deep and expansive 
a concern for the happiness of others the Christian faith can 

p 2 



316 POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 

awaken in the midst of youth and prosperity. Here is nothing 
poetical and splendid, as in the expostulatory homage of M. 
Delamartine; but here is the sublime, my Lord; for this in- 
tercession was offered, on your account, to the supreme Source 
of happiness. It sprang from a faith more confirmed than that 
of the French poet; and from a charity which, in combina- 
tion with faith, shewed its power unimpaired amidst the lan- 
guors and pains of approaching dissolution. I will hope that 
a prayer, which, I am sure, was deeply sincere, may not be 
always unavailing. 

It would add nothing, my Lord, to the fame with which 
your genius has surrounded you, for an unknown and ob- 
scure individual to express his admiration of it. I had rather 
be numbered with those who wish and pray, that " wisdom 
from above," and " peace/' and "joy," may enter such a 
mind. 



THE ANSWER. 

Pisa, December 8, 1821. 
Sir, 

I have received your letter. I need not say, that the ex- 
tract which it contains has affected me, because it would imply 
a want of all feeling to have read it with indifference. Though 
I am not quite sure that it was intended by the writer for me, 
yet the date, the place where it was written, with some other 
circumstances which you mention, render the allusion pro- 



POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 317 

bable. But, for whomever it was meant, I have read it with 
all the pleasure which can arise from so melancholy a topic. 
I say pleasure — because your brief and simple picture of the 
life and demeanour of the excellent person whom I trust you 
will again meet, cannot be contemplated without the ad- 
miration due to her virtues, and her pure and unpretending 
piety. Her last moments were particularly striking ; and I 
do not know, that, in the course of reading the story of man- 
kind, and still less in my observations upon the existing 
portion, I ever met with any thing so unostentatiously beau- 
tiful. — Indisputably, the firm believers in the gospel have a 
great advantage over all others, — for this simple reason, that 
if true, they will have their reward hereafter, and if there be 
no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal 
sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope, through 
life, without subsequent disappintment, since (at the worst 
for them) " out of nothing, nothing can arise/ 5 not even 
sorrow. But a man's creed does not depend upon himself; 
who can say, I will believe, — this,— that, — or the other ? and 
least of all, that which he least can comprehend. I have, 
however, observed, that those who have begun life with 
extreme faith, have in the end greatly narrowed it, as Chil- 
lingworth, Clarke, (who ended as an Arian,) Bayle, and 
Gibbon, (once a Catholic,) and some others ; while on the 
other hand, nothing is more common than for the early 
sceptic to end in a firm belief, like Maupertuis, and Henry 
Kirke White. 

But my business is to acknowledge your letter, and not to 
make a dissertation. I am obliged to you for your good 
wishes, and more than obliged by the extract from the 
papers of the beloved object whose qualities you have so well 



318 POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 

described in a few words. I can assure you that all the fame 
which ever cheated Humanity into higher notions of its own 
importance, would never weigh in my mind against the pure 
and pious interest which a virtuous being may be pleased 
to take in my welfare. In this point of view I would not 
exchange the prayer of the deceased in my behalf, for the 
united glory of Homer, Caesar, and Napoleon, could such 
be accumulated upon a living head. Do me at least the jus- 
tice to suppose that 

" Video meilora proboque f 

however the " Deteriora sequo" may have been applied to 
my conduct. 

I have the honour to be, 

Your obliged and obedient Servant, 

BYRON. 

P.S. I do not know that I am addressing a clergyman : 
but I presume that you will not be affronted by the mis- 
take (if it is one) on the address of this letter. One who 
has so well explained, and deeply felt, the doctrines of reli- 
gion, will excuse the error which led me to believe him its 
minister. 



To some persons it will of course be entirely superfluous 
to suggest the chief reflections which this letter awakens ; 
and yet, for the sake of others, it appears right not to lay it, 
uncommented upon, before the public. 



POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 319 

Nothing in it will be more obvious or more important, in 
the view of a thinking reader, than the full concession of this 
powerful mind as to the high value of Christian faith ; the 
" exalted hope, through life," which it is exclusively adapted 
to confer on its genuine possessors. It is assumed by the 
noble writer, as an agreed fact, that modern infidels have no 
better prospect to offer us than that of " eternal sleep." And 
it is too apparent, from intimations in his own, and broader 
statements in other works, that the reigning unbelief of our 
day is of this lowest and most hopeless kind. Imagination 
and physical science seem to have contended which shall 
lend itself most effectively to the wretched and ignoble task 
of persuading men that they are altogether mortal. Poetry 
and physiology have been employed to present visions of 
materialism and annihilation, which cannot but involve a 
creed nearly equivalent to atheism. 

The schemes of the older deists, and of the modern theo- 
philanthropists, which, while excluding revelation, professedly 
upheld the doctrine of a future state, are to be placed but one 
very short step in the scale of moral opinions below that 
German neology or anti-supernaturalism, which assumes the 
name of Christian ; and those schemes were exalted when 
compared with the degrading and demoralizing theory which 
modern infidels propose. 

But whatever superiority those better tenets possessed, it 
may be doubted whether they have often been firmly held 
even by the speculatists who taught them. Dr. Young, who 
was a cotemporary with some of the chief deistical writers 
of the last century, has said in one of his well-known pre- 
faces, " from my being accidentally privy to the sentiments 
of some particular persons, I have been long persuaded 



320 POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 

that most, if not all, our infidels (whatever name they take, 
and whatever scheme, for argument's sake, and to keep 
themselves in countenance, they patronise) are supported 
in their deplorable error, by some doubt of their immortality 
at the bottom." - 

From the mode of conducting this evil cause both in France 
and England, since his time, we have ground to conclude 
that this most ruinous kind of unbelief has infected a greater 
proportion than heretofore of those who reject or do not 
embrace Christianity. There are still, I trust, not a few, who 
adhere, in their wishes as well as their professions, to a more 
elevated and pure philosophy; but it seems probable that 
even these secretly fluctuate from the better to the worse, as 
lower inclinations predominate. On the other hand, while 
it is impossible not to fear, from the whole cast of his writings 
and conduct, that the mind of Lord Byron often yielded itself 
to the most debasing views of the human nature and destiny, 
I cannot but believe that it had occasional and strong fluc- 
tuations towards that immortal prospect, which the noblest 
souls of pagan antiquity could not renounce ; — were there no 
other reason to suppose this, I could yet not allow myself 
to interpret the language of this lester applied to the 
departed, — " whom I trust that you will again meet," — as a 
merely complimental or soothing accommodation of phrase to 
the feelings and hopes of his correspondent. 

This would not accord with the bold frankness of the 
writer's temper and style, and would be a purely gratuitous 
departure from it, because so easily avoided. It is rather to 
be judged that his fancy wavered between Plato and Epicurus, 
though his irregular passions, and licentious habits, with the 
daring independence and misanthropic spirit which they 



POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 321 

fomented, biassed him towards the latter. — Such a vacillation 
is the best state of mind, concerning all beyond this short 
precarious life, which can be hoped for by those among us 
who reject the divine mission of Jesus ! 

And here another reflection, eminently favourable to Chris- 
tianity, arises from the very fact, that for want of its influ- 
ence, an intellect so noble, and feelings so exquisite as Lord 
Byron's, could be so frequently warped (by his own implied 
admission) into a state of overt hostility to human virtue and 
well-being ; that the writer of this letter, with a soul capable 
of appreciating and loving (I trust, for the time, sincerely) 
the beauty and happiness of Christian devotion and bene- 
volence, could yet persist in wanton contributions to the 
overthrow of such principles, and the blighting of such 
enjoyments. How solemn a lesson against permitting the 
mind to rush and wander in its own reckless, meteor-like 
course, and to be but a brilliant torch of devastation, while 
it might have shone as a light to the world. 

In connexion with this thought it may be observed, that no 
part of the letter is, in my view, more affecting or instructive, 
than the remark, — " A man's creed does not depend upon 
himself y Have we not in these words an implied, though 
probably unintentional testimony to the necessity of that 
divine influence, which, it is to be feared, the distinguished 
writer had, then at least, never sought? No man's produc- 
tions bear witness so strongly, and so eloquently, as Lord 
Byron's, to the evil that is in the world : no man had 
detected with a more quick and deep penetration, or deli- 
neated with so powerful a hand, the depravation of human 
nature. Admitting that he, as a philosphic poet, drew a 
faithful portrait of man, or even allowing, as we must, for 

P 3 



322 POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 

much exaggerated colouring, what is more improbable, than 
that a being, at once sensual, proud, and malignant, should 
have any settled will to believe the pure and humbling 
religion of the Bible, — a system of love, peace, and self- 
denial, — except by first deriving a new moral strength from 
its Author ? What more evident than that such a being is 
naturally under the bias of a contrary will?— Oh, that a 
mind awake to the value of Christian faith, and yet con- 
vinced that " a man's creed does not depend upon himself" 
had so far acted on its convictions, as to ask even of an 
" unknown God," — u Work in me to will of thy good 
pleasure !" % 

It may, however, be said by sceptics or by fatalists, that 
I misunderstand or wrest Lord Byron's language ; that he 
would represent belief as a mere involuntary mental state, 
like our sensations. I allow that this may be the more 
probable intention of his words, particularly as connected 
with those which follow ; though such a view of the nature 
of belief is irreconcilable with the obvious fact, how strongly 
it is every day modified by inclination, and swayed by present 
interests or passions. But, were the correctness of that 
supposed notion admitted, it could never disprove, that, in 
the same manner as correct or erroneous sensation depends 
on the healthful or diseased state either of the body or mind, 
so a belief or disbelief of what is most momentous, a correct 
or erroneous view of moral and revealed truth, may depend 
on the healthful or diseased state of the moral principles and 
affections. Granting only the being of a Power who formed 
and sustains us, it is no less within the sphere of that Power 
to rectify our moral affections or mental perceptions than 
our physical sensations. Nothing less than a demonstration 



POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 323 

of atheism, which is impossible, could shew, that "a man's 
creed," any more than his bodily or mental health, is subject 
to no good influence on which he may rationally calculate, 
and which therefore he may rationally seek. 

It is much to be lamented, that while sceptics persuade 
themselves that belief is not to be sought, because, like 
health, it is involuntary, there are also believers, (I hope 
but few,) who, holding the very opposite persuasion, that it 
depends on the will to receive or reject evidence, yet deny 
that man can in any degree seek its reception ; alleging that, 
when he has a will to do so, it must be wholly an unsought 
gift ; thus supporting the notion, that his " creed does not 
depend upon himself," in its enervating and paralysing 
sense ; making him to be altogether passive in the acquire- 
ment of a right belief. The one sect, rejecting the gospel, 
contend that there is no such thing, metaphysically, as willing 
to believe. The other, receiving the gospel, not only affirm 
that there is no such thing, morally, as willing to believe, 
unless a new will be given from above ; but they hence infer, 
that men have only to wait passively for this gift. The 
foundation of this latter theory appears by far the more 
correct ; but the inference entirely unwarranted and per- 
nicious. 

These cursory views of a question that includes difficulties 
insoluble by the human mind, may be deemed crude and con- 
fused by reasoners, who think they have approached much 
more nearly to the true solution ; but in aiming at practical 
utility, we need not aspire to metaphysical acuteness or 
systematic precision. 

It is most cordially admitted that even the faintest and 
most transient wish after what is really good, whether the 



324 POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 

wish of a right belief, or affection, or practice, is a free gift 
of God j but it is equally certain, that these wishes exist, 
more or less, in the minds of many, "who have as yet no 
settled will either to believe or obey. Is it not the para- 
mount duty and interest of these persons immediately to 
foster and consolidate their wishes, to make them vital and 
energetic, by giving to them the quality of supplication, — 
praying that He who infused them would strengthen them 
into the prevailing will and purpose of the soul ? We speak 
not of resolved unwavering atheism, if such a state of mind 
be credible ; but no state short of this can preclude the duty, 
or can desperately exclude the benefits, of prayer. That 
Lord Byron had, sometimes at least, the wish to believe, may 
be inferred both from his full perception of the "great 
advantage" of belief, and from the ingenious declaration, 
cc Video meliora proboque." It would be most consolatory 
to hope, that this wish was in his latter days more effectually 
cherished, The reference to the theological views of Chil- 
lingworth and Clarke, discloses a certain degree of attention 
to such varieties of religious opinion, as one would have 
judged him likely to pass by with disdain. But besides this, 
there seems something almost predictive in the remark that 
" nothing is more common than for the early sceptic to end 
in a firm belief; 1 ' and it is not easy to account for its intro- 
duction, except from a wish to intimate some presentiment 
or experience of such a tendency in himself. A determined 
infidel could scarcely have offered the observation, unac- 
companied by some philosophizing or satiric comment on 
the mental decrepitude of those who had undergone such a 
change ; and had he been capable of the good feeling which 
Lord Byron displayed in this letter, would have omitted it 



POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 325 

wholly, because in this case disinclined to guard the fact by 
the wonted and unwelcome explanation.* 

The rapid nature of Lord Byron's mortal illness, and that 
early summons from the world which broke off his splendid 
efforts in the cause of an oppressed nation, are mournful 
objects of thought; and they become far more so from our 
dark, unrelieved uncertainty regarding the final state of his 
mind, the temper with which his spirit passed into eternity. 

When we think how lightly " all the fame which ever 
cheated Humanity," — all the " accumulated" renown of this 
world, — was professedly esteemed by one who shared in 
it so amply, — how can we but shudder, even at imagining, 
that this vain glory of unconsecrated genius, and the more 
transient blandishments of pleasure, mixed with so many 
pangs, could suffice to work the ruin of a lofty soul, which 
should have learned to glory in the perfections of a merciful 
God, and to delight eternally in Him ! And, if we cannot 
figure to ourselves so fatal an exchange without profound 
melancholy, then how deep must we confess to have been 
the madness of our own hearts, whenever we have put the 
same boundless felicities at hazard for the sake of a com- 
parative pittance of base gratification, or of such a scanty 
dole of this world's praise, or gain, as could but disappoint 
and irritate desire. 

With respect to the immediate subject of these reflections, 

* In the instance of De La Harpe, adduced in Note F, (which, 
though not named by Lord Byron, was perhaps not unknown to 
him,) the reality and strength of this " belief" are evinced by the 
deep feelings of penitence, gratitude, and devotion which it 
prompted ; and which are expressed with all the eloquence of 
the heart. 



326 POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 

while it is not forbidden to indulge the hope even of possi- 
bilities, we ought to view both his life and death as affording 
a warning more forcible than volumes of admonition, on the 
importance of early adopting, and firmly adhering to those 
principles which will alone cheer a desolate and dying hour. 
It seems, as indeed was to be expected, that he had, in that 
crisis, no associate or attendant to whom his deepest thoughts 
and sentiments were at all likely to be disclosed. 

Intercessions, I cannot doubt, had long been anxiously 
offered on his behalf, at least by relatives ; and some of 
these in the blessed spirit of Christian forgiveness : others, 
as the preceding pages affectingly shew, by one unknown 
to him, from the pure promptings of a Christian solicitude 
for his welfare, enhanced by his peculiar gifts and high 
responsibilities. Till the heavenly records of charity shall be 
at last unrolled, we know not what more and similar petitions 
may have been poured forth from hearts that responded to 
his genius, and deplored its aberrations. Nor can any pro- 
nounce, till after "the judgment is set, and the books are 
opened, 1 ' that these were ultimately and altogether fruitless. 

I feel these reflections painfully inadequate to the import- 
ance of the subject. There is one of a more personal and 
minor nature, at which I have already glanced, and in which 
my pleasure may be shared by those who would gladly soften 
the dark shades that rest upon Lord Byron's memory. It 
will easily be conceived, that, from the contemptuous asperity 
of some passages in his works, I could not without a conflict 
transmit the above communication, doubting that the 
answer, if any should be returned, might evince a disposition 
which would at once give me pain, and shew the inutility of 
my attempt to benefit or interest him, even by the most 



POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 327 

touching display of Christian excellence. I therefore expe- 
rienced a gratification quite unreckoned on, in that tone of 
feeling which pervades the letter ; so remote from any thing 
like irritated pride, or even diminished admiration, on account 
of the heavy censures which the prayer involves ; so unmixed 
with any apparent distaste of the religious sentiment or 
phraseology of her who offered it ; and so marked by a deli- 
cate courtesy toward myself. 

It remains to say a few words on the publicity now given 
to this correspondence. Concerning her whose piety gave 
rise to it, I shall say little ; affection may well indulge the 
silence it prefers, when a stranger, and such a stranger, has 
felt and recognised the worth of its object. Undoubtedly no 
one could less anticipate this publicity, or would have shunned 
it with more singleness of heart, than that beloved indi- 
vidual, the sanctuary of whose retired devotions has been 
thus unlocked* But yet could her disinterested mind have 
been convinced in her last hours of life, that good might 
probably arise from the disclosure, the same principle of 
Christian love which gave birth to her secret intercessions, 
would have forbidden' her to lay any restriction on the wishes 
of others, when such an effect was contemplated. With 
respect to Lord Byron, when we enter into the fearful con- 
sideration how much evil may have flowed, and yet may 
flow, both from some of his productions, and from the re- 
corded sentiments and example of their author, it would 
seem culpable if thoughts from his pen, possessing in any 
measure the quality of an antidote, were withholden from the 
world.* 

* This opinion was further strengthened by the appearance 
of a work published while the second edition of this volume 



328 POSTSCRIPT TO NOTE F. 

Prayer having originated the correspondence, and forming 
its chief topic, the present volume, which has prayer for its 
subject, which particularly treats of intercession, and in 
which Lord Byron's works had been previously adverted to, 
seems a sort of prepared vehicle for its publication ; though 
nothing could be more remote from the writer's thoughts, 
than that these letters and reflections would ever be annexed 
to his pages, or indeed be published in any form. Such 
however having been the course of circumstances, he con- 
cludes with a petition, in which Christian readers will unite, 
that they may be made conducive to the previous design, — 
persuasive to devotion, and contributory to happiness. 

was in the press, and by its very unexpected reference to the 
foregoing letters.* It seemed just, that those whose attention 
is chiefly fixed on the moral and religious aspects of character, 
(and this in proportion to the distinction and influence of the 
party,) should have the means of comparing the actual cor- 
respondence with the notes of a conversation which related to 
it. , 

* Medwin's Conversations of Lord Byron, page 118, 8vo. edition. 



Note G. 



preventing mercy, which inclined him so to seek 

the heavenly boon. Page 245. 

It will hardly be suspected that the writer is blind to the 
difficulty which these views of grace and duty involve ; or 
to the ease with which disputants, on both sides, may exhibit 
a species of inconsistency in them, both as expressed here 
and elsewhere. He would reply to all similar disputations, 
in the following words of Abbadie : — 

" Most persons are persuaded, that the Deity preserves, 
nourishes, and sustains us by a perpetual concurrence, with- 
out which the aliments that we take, and the care of our 
preservation, would be in vain ; and by which we imme- 
diately subsist. — Yet we find none irrational enough to 
embarrass themselves with questions like these : — If I nourish 
myself, by taking necessary aliments, how can it be said that 
it is God who nourishes and preserves me ? Or, if it be God 
who does this, how am I obliged to nourish and to preserve 
myself? People do not raise these difficulties in nature : 
they do raise them in religion. Yet they would be as well 
founded in the one as in the other ; since they arise out of 



330 NOTE G. 

that dependence on the Divinity which belongs both to our 
being and our new being. 

" In nature, we know that we subsist by the divine concur- 
rence, and we do not inquire the mode of it. In religion, 
we are not satisfied with knowing that grace regenerates, but 
we would know the mode of this operation, and we set our- 
selves to discover it ; thus the difficulties by which no one is 
perplexed on the question of eating and drinking, and the 
support of bodily life, become appalling in regard to moral 
and spiritual life. Ask the reason of this from the heart of 
man. — In nature, our mind acts naturally ; in religion, it is 
cheated by the passions, which seek only matter of doubt. — 
For ourselves, it suffices us, on such points, to be as reasonable 
in religion as we are in natural affairs." 

Traite de la Ver. de la ReL Chret. 
torn. ii. pp. 460 — 61. 



If it be objected that there is no parallelism, nor even 
close analogy, in the cases, — it is not pretended, (nor could 
it be by the author cited,) that the difficulties in the doctrines 
of grace*"* are in no respects greater than those found in 
nature, or are strictly analagous to them ; but only that the 
latter class of difficulties are great enough and similar enough 
to prove the unreasonableness of stumbling at the former. 
Perhaps we may approach somewhat more nearly to an 
illustration of the especial difficulty in view, by reference to 
the means used for restoring bodily health. Some skilful 
physicians have been, and, thank God, some are sincere 
Christians, Need we name Boerhaave, Haller, Grew, Willis, 



NOTE G. 331 

Browne, and Cheyne ? I could, with genuine pleasure, add 
several living names to these. — Suppose such a physician to 
call on a person labouring under a decay of which he himself 
thinks lightly, so as to be quite disinclined to all remedies, 
while yet in the eye of science his state is evidently hopeless, 
except the constitution can be renovated. The physician 
says, with friendly urgency, — Your case is highly dangerous. 
It is your duty to seek health and the preservation of life. 
Take these medicines daily. Adopt strictly the regimen 
which I shall now prescribe. Walk early, and during a fixed 
time, upon the hills. You are bound to do all these things, 
however averse or unable you may be, or seem to be. If you 
do them, I can all but promise you health ; — if you do not, 
you will die ; and this through your self-will, or apathy, or 
disbelief of my assurances. — Let us imagine the patient to be 
persuaded by these arguments, to adopt these means, and to 
recover. His visitor, now, it is but too probable, finds him 
unimpressed with gratitude to the Divine Providence,* appa- 
rently ascribing all to second causes ; and he reminds him, — 
Nay, but thank God for all this. It was he who sent you a 
sincere adviser as his instrument. He it was who preserved 
your faculties, to understand, and in some sort, believe my 
advice ; who caused it to over-weigh your manifest aversion 
to compliance ; who gave you organic power to take and 
retain the remedies offered ; who communicated to each of 

* Here our intended analogy does not hold ; for he who is 
spiritually healed, is — by the moral soundness of mind, which 
has been thus imparted — taught to feel, and say, " Unto God 
be all the glory." But this difference no way affects the other 
points of our comparison. 



332 NOTE G. 

these their original qualities, and their immediate agency on 
your frame ; who so far upheld your muscular strength that 
you could still avail yourself of air and exercise. Do not, in 
any sense, thank yourself, or me, as the author of health, but 
Him who is the First and Efficient Cause of all good, the 
Author of your recovery and of your being. 

Now we can too easily suppose some brother physician so 
professedly a metaphysician, but so questionably a theist, as 
to say, — Why do you thus perplex your patient, by recom- 
mending him to look above his own agency and yours, and 
the natural means employed, — when you admit, that, but 
for these, he would not have been now living, and when 
you know, that, as to the nature and mode of a superior and 
primary causation, we are profoundly ignorant ? 

It will be somewhat harder, I apprehend, to find any neigh- 
bour so much a fatalist as to offer the contrary kind of re- 
monstrance,— Why did you delude your patient by telling 
him it was his duty to seek recovery ; that he was bound to 
use means, and warranted to hope for life in doing so, and 
then only, — when you now openly contradict yourself by 
ascribing his restoration entirely to the Divine power and 
goodness ; and when you knew, that to this source, if it 
should take place at all, his recovery would be wholly ascriba- 
ble ? — It were rash to deny, that, in our philosophic age, such 
a reasoner may be found, — but hardly among physicians. 
There are however spiritual practitioners, (and graduates 
among them,) who proceed on principles analagous to these ; 
who seem to account it their sole direct office to keep the 
restored in comfortable health \ who think it delusive and im- 
pious directly to prescribe to those who are most grievously 
sick, though they may (if it please God) profit by hearing or 



NOTE G. 333 

reading the frequent prescriptions of cordials for the conva- 
lescent ; nay, who are at pains to explain to (or before) such 
wretched persons, their inability, in all senses, to use the 
means proper for their cure ; declaring not only that they 
cannot because they will not, but that the converse is equally 
true ; — they will not, because they cannot. Let it not be said, 
this is imitating the ruler of the synagogue: for he, probably, 
was a Pharisee. He said, — " Come y and be healed," — though 
" not on the sabbath-day/' These physicians say, — Ye can- 
not come and be healed, either on that day or the other 
six. 

But I have digressed from the direct illustration intended. 
I return to the supposition, that our Christian physician 
having, instrumentally, persuaded, cured, and admonished his 
patient, is himself so lectured from both sides. He stands 
convicted perhaps (at least in each lecturer's eyes) of meta- 
physical inconsistencies ; yet, may he not, at the bar of com- 
mon sense, and of Scriptural Christianity, hope for an 
acquittal ? 



INDEX. 



The Roman numerals refer to the section ; the figures to the page ; 
the letters to the note. 



A. 

Abbadie, on difficulties concerning "grace," G. 329 — 30. 
Activity, ceaseless in the works and operations of Deity, iv. 28, 

29 ; an argument against spiritual apathy, 30. 
called for by the possession of health and ease, viii. 

65 — 67 ; enforced by our Saviour's example, 68, and xxv. 

282-3. 
Afflictions, not sent in vengeance, xxi. 187— 8 ; — yet are cor- 
rective penalties, 189 — 90. 
Analogical language, necessary in theology, C. 292 — 4. 
Anniversaries, private, increase as life advances, xxvi. 264 — 5 ; 

— powerfully warn us of the flight of time, 266 — 8; — affect- 

ingly indicate our approaching departure, 268 — 70 ; — should 

lead us to deep devotion, 270 — 1. 
Apology for frequent citations, Pref. xi. ; — for seeming egotism, 

xiii. 
Argument of St. Paul makes heavenly happiness credible, 

xxvii. 286. 

for the truth of the Incarnation, x. 87. 

Assurance of God's moral perfection invaluable, xiii. 112. 

Hartley's remarks on this, E. 306. 

Astronomy modern, in some respects auxiliary to faith, xiii. 

109. 

B. 

Barrow, Dr. Isaac, his remark on a life of idleness, xxiii. 207- 
Bates, Dr. on prayer for pardon, xvii. 159. 
Baxter, Richard, on the chief good, xvi. 141. 



336 INDEX. 



Beatific vision, its effects, xxvii. 278 — 281. 

Belief, religious, the wish for it should be cherished, F. 324. 

Berkeley's paradox, reversed in our spiritual insensibility, xiv. 

125-8. 
Bodilv decay, to a true Christian, the convalescence of the soul, 

xxv. 262—3. 
Bondage of sensuality degrading, xvi. 139 — 40. 
Brevitv, where necessary, lessens not the efficacy of prayer, 

xix/176— 7- 
Brown, Dr. Thomas, his views of prayer, &c. A. 289 — 90. 
Business, a life of, very general, xxik\ 204 — 5, and 207 ;— - 

causes and desirableness of its being so, 207 — 9 ; — spiritual 

evil which may attend it, 209 ;— means of counteracting this, 

209, &c. 
Byron, Lord, reflection on his writings, F. 307 ; — occasion of 

correspondence with, 310— 11 ;— communication to, 313; — 

answer from, 316—18; — thoughts on the communication 
made to, and on its reception, 318 — 27 ; — his death awfully 
monitory, 307—8, and 325—6. 



Chastisement, real, needful for us, xxii. 201—3. 

Chemical transformations facilitate our idea of the " spiritual 

body,' ; xxvii. 276 — 7- 
Christian admonition a difficult duty, ix. 74 — 5. 
, the hopeful best prepared for praise, xi. 95 ; the 

convalescent, his feelings and admonitions, xxv. 255 — 6. 
Chrysostom on Paul's love to his fellow Christians, xix. 177—8. 
Comment on James, i. 17. B. 291—2. 
Confessions, secret, should be specific, xii. 103 — 5. 
Contrition for sin earnestly to be desired, xviii. 158 — 9 ; should 

be profound, 160 — 1. 
Crosses, we are not to choose them for ourselves, xxii. 199, 

and 202—3. 

D. 

Deity, local manifestation of, ii. 7? 8 ; — natural attributes of, 
may assist us to estimate the moral, x. 81 ; — as truth, 85 ; — 
justice, love, 86 ; — moral perfection of, the great subject of 
revelation, xiii. 110 — 12 ; — unsearchable resources of, D. 
300 T 1. 

Rejection, adverse to the spirit of praise, xi. 96; — attempt to 
rise from it by realizing heavenly felicity, xx. 179 — 82. 

Dependence on God entire and constant, xxi. 184 — 5. 



INDEX. 337 



Despondency, argument against it, xxii. 200—1. 

Discouragement in prayer, combated, 197 — 8. 

Diseases of the soul, many, viii. 66 — 7- 

Divine greatness, our indistinct sense of it occasions irreve- 
rence, i. 1 — 2. 

Divine influence purely gratuitous, B. 291 — 2 ;— its necessity 
to faith in the gospel, F. 322. 

Doddridge, his happiness when approaching death, xxv. 257. 

E. 

Eloquence, its greatness relative, v. 33 ; — human, petty in the 

estimation of higher intelligences, 34. 
Evidences of Christianity occasionally here adverted to, Pref. 

xxi. 
-presumptive, for the truth of Judaism, ii. 8 ; — and for 

the divinity of Scripture from its inartificial style, v. 36. 
Extension, speculations concerning it, D. 300 — 1 . 



Faith, exercised amidst spiritual darkness, xxii. 195 — 6; — a 
low degree of it does not preclude success in prayer, xxiv. 
240 — 1, — inference from this, 245 — 6. 

Faith and unbelief, represented in Scripture as moral disposi- 
tions, 224 ; — proved to be so by their effects, 225 ; — repre- 
sented by sceptics as not being so, F. 322 — 3. 

Fear of divine chastisements should prompt to duty, xxi. 191. 

Fenelon, on the want of pleasure in prayer, xxii. 193 ; on his 
own occupations, and advice to the busy, xxiii. 215 — 17 ; — 
on the nature of infinity, D. 303 — 4. 

Fickleness habitual, may frustrate prayer, xxiv. 332 — 3, 

Frailty of our mortal constitution, xxvii. 272. 

Frequency does not produce remissness in worldly concerns, 
vi. 51—2. 

G. 

Gerson, on reluctance to devotion, iv. 27- 
Gratitude to Christian friends, in a future life, ix. 79—80, — 
xix. 173—4. 

H. 

Habit, weakens present impressions, — probably hereafter will 

strengthen them, xxvii. 281 — 3. 
Habits of thought, their influence and importance, vii. 57- 
Hale, Sir M., his religious economy of time, and advice con- 
cerning it, xxiii. 218 — 221. 



338 INDEX. 



Hales and Barrow, their views as to a sort of perpetual devo- 
tion, xxvii. 284 ; — more strictly applicable to a future life, 
284—5. 

Halley and Hartley, their opinions as to the immensity of 
creation, D. 299. 

Hartley, on the value of revelation, E. 367. 

Halyburton, his dying conversations, xxv. 258—62. 

Harpe, De La, his sentiments on Christianity, F. 309 — 10. 

Howe, his record of transporting dreams, xxvii. 273—4. 

Human life, trials and dangers impend over it, xxi, 188 — 9 ;— 
yet this should not dismay us, ibid. 



Illustration of the importance of meditation, by the supposed 
worship of the sun, i. 2 — 5 ; — of diverse mental development, 
by differences in vegetation, v. 35 — 36 ; — of the Scripture 
style, by the sketches of a great master, 36;— of relative 
littleness, by various objects, 33 — 4 and 41 ; — of the diver- 
sities of trains of thought, by those arising from the sight of 
a rainbow, vii. 55 — 57 ; — of the moral attributes of Deity, by 
the physical wonders of creation, x. 83 — 7? and 91 — 2. 

of devotional habits, by the practice of music, xi. 

93—5. 

of the future discovery of the spiritual world, by a 



captive's sudden view of a wide landscape, xiii. 108—10. 

of spiritual darkness, by a traveller's progress 



through mists, xiv. 124. 

of real devotion, by the amount of pure metal con- 



tained in ore, xv. 137 — 8. 

of adapting prayer to the temporary state of mind, 



by the skill of navigators, xvii. 149—50. 

of faith without joy, by the opposite situations of 



voyagers xxii. 196 — 7- 

of a devout bent of mind, by the conduct of a pilot, 



xxiii. 214. 

of unbelief, by a vacuum, xxiv. 225 — 6. 

— of faith and unbelief, by aerostation, 230. 
of suspended and renewed activity, by the state of 



lakes and rivers, xxv. 251 — 2. 

of heavenly adoration, by the iris that surrounds a 



fountain, xxvii. 285 — 6. 

of our belief in the populousness of creation, by a 



seaman's view of some unknown land, D. 301 — 2. 

of appropriation of others' thoughts, by the repro- 



duction of old plate, D 303. 



INDEX. 339 



Illustration of disputes on grace, by supposed strictures on a 
Christian physician, G. 331 — 3. 

Imagination, auxiliary to faith, xi. 96 — 7 ; — attempts to awaken 
it, 97—100. 

Incarnation of Deity, the infinite expression of the moral at- 
tributes, x. 87—90. 

its wonderfulness enhanced by considering the 

" things that are made," x. 91 — 2. 

Infidelity, modern, generally of a debasing kind, F. 318 — 20. 

Infinite, this term used analogically, C. 293 — 4. 

whether the creation may not in some sense be so 

regarded, D. 303—4. 

Infinity, different definitions of, 298—300. 

Infinity and eternity, — the future or potential, 305 — 6. 

Influence which restoration of health ought to have on the 
mind, xxv. 252 — 3. 

which the prospect of heaven should have on our 

devotions, xxvii. 286 — 7- 

Intercession of our Saviour, encourages our unworthy prayers, 
xv. 134—6. 

for friends, its efficacy, a valuable Christian doc- 
trine, ix. 70 — 2 ; — disbelief in it melancholy, 72 — 3 ; — belief 
highly consolatory, 73 — 4 ; — an easy and delightful exercise 
of Christian kindness, 75 — 6 ; — its effects incalculable, 76 — 
80 ; — promotes humility and love, xix. 170 — 1, and 173. 

for our fellow Christians, its efficacy and importance 



shewn from Scripture, xix. 162 — 5; — especially from the 
writings of St. Paul, 165 — 7 ; — distrust on this point com- 
bated, 167 — 9 ; — its analogy to other ordinary facts, 170—1. 
for benefactors, a relief and comfort to the mind, 



171—2. 

-for different friends, in succession or rotation, 174 



—5. 

Intercessory prayer on behalf of Lord Byron, F. 314 — 15. 

remarks on it, 315 — 16. 

Intermissions of bodily and mental health may promote use- 
fulness on the whole, xxv. 250 — 3. 

J. 

Joy, or glory, strong impressions of it, their probable effect in 

our present state, xxii. 200, and xxvii. 285 — 7- 
Jullien, his plan for registry of employments, xxiii. 205 — 6. 

L. 

Labours which are not intellectual, favourable to devotion, 
xxvii. 285—7. 



340 INDEX 



Lines, — calling on the mind to realize in worship the divine 
greatness, i. 5 — 6 ; — of Herbert, on the consecration of ordi- 
nary acts, xxiii. 222 — 3 ; — of Klopstock, imitated, on the 
resurrection of Rachel, xxvii. 274 — 5. 

Locke, on the sense of the term infinite, C. 292 and 296. 

M. 

Magnitude of the creation a strong argument for its populous- 

ness, D. 301—2. 
Mind, — more dependent on the bodily state in some than in 

others, xxv. 247 — 8 ; — its infirmities painful, but may be 

salutary as repressing pride, 249 — 50. 
Minuteness, speculation concerning it, D. 300 — 1. 
Mystery, universal in nature, D. 298 — 9. 

O. 

Objection to the inartificial style of Scripture, groundless, v. 

36—7 ; — to the scriptural imagery, obviated, C. 295— 7« 
Omnipresence divine, implied in the universal agency of Deity, 

ii. 7? 8 ; — not incompatible with a local manifestation, 9, 10 ; 

— not duly realized, 10,11; — perpetual and intimate, 11, 

12 ; — encourages mental prayer, 12, 13, and xxiii. 211. 



Pardon, sure to the true penitent, vi. 45 ; — daily and always 
needed, 46 — 7 : — to be penitently and earnestly implored, 
xviii. 153 — 4. 

Physical greatness relative, v. 32. 

Prayer, real, requires a sense of the divine perfection, 1, 2 %. — 
mental or silent, encouraged by the certainty of the divine 
omnipresence, ii. 12 — 14, and xxiii. 211 ; — yet perhaps not 
usually desirable as prolonged exercise, ii. 14—16. 

— its efficacy, not to be denied without rejecting Scrip- 
ture, iii. 17} 18; — difficulties concerning it have no real 
weight, 19, 20 ; — as to many blessings, should be conditional, 
20, 21 ; — as to others unconditional, 22, 23 ; — answers to it, 
21 — 23 ; — moral and spiritual perseverance should be viewed 
as its effect, 23—5 ; — true eloquence in, v. 32 ; — the most 
untaught or artless not to be despised, 37, 38 ;— gift of 
eloquence in, should excite gratitude, not pride, 38 ; — nor 
the want of it despondency, ib. ; — greatness of the blessings 
sought in it, vi. 43, 44, and 47 — 50 ; — earnestness in it in- 
culcated from the example of petitioners to princes, 44, 47, 
49 ; — when specific the less formal, xii. 101—2 ; — its indirect 



INDEX. 341 



benefits, 107 ; — its defects and sins, xv. 132 — 4 ; — is en- 
couraged by the intercession of Christ, 134 — 6 ; — its efficacy 
proportionate to its sincerity, 136 — 8, and xvii. 147 ; — may 
be sometimes adapted to the pre -occupation of the mind, 149, 
50 ; — supposed of a chymist, and a sculptor, 150 — 3 ; — pre- 
paration for, 1 53—4 ; — forms of, ibid. ; — for help and strength 
against sin, indispensable, xviii. 160 — 1 ; — may be sincere 
without being pleasurable, xxii. 193 — 5 ; — is to be perse- 
vered in though not attended with joy, 199, 200 ; — mental 
or ejaculatory, in intervals of leisure, to be cultivated, xxiii. 
211 — 12; — when insincere, not effectual, xxiv. 230 — 4; — 
but not inefficacious on account of sinful tendencies in the 
heart, 236 — 8 ; — nor on account of speculative doubts and 
conflicts, 238 — 9 ; — nor on account of the want of full assur- 
ance, 239 — 40 ; — for conversion, a duty, 244 — 5 ; — this per- 
niciously questioned or denied by some, F. 323 — 4, and G. 
332—3. 

Presence with God, spiritual, to be sought, ii. 15, 16. 

Presence of God should excite hope and energy, xx. 182 — 3. 

Preservation from disease and harm, what it claims, viii. 63 — 
6, and 67-8. 

R. 

Recent sin, should lead to deep humiliation and contrite en- 
treaties, xviii. 156 — 60. 

Reference to the divine will renders active life devotional, 
xxiii. 213 — 14; — this not incompatible with cheerfulness, 
222-3. 

Reflections on correspondence with Lord Byron, F. 319 — 28. 

Regulation of the mind, highly desirable, xvii. 155. 

Reluctance to prayer and meditation not to be indulged, iv. 
26 — 8, and xvi. 142 ; — is a humiliating state of mind, xiv. 
122-4. 

Renunciation of prayer, its consequences, iii. 24. 

Repining at small evils, weak and sinful, viii. 65, 66. 

S. 

Scepticism arising from the observation of mental decay, not 

well founded, v. 34, 36. 
Self-examination called for by the absence of spiritual comfort, 

xxii. 193—4. 
Self-inspection the chief source of spiritual counsel, Pref, Xvii. 

xviii. 



342 INDEX. 

Sin, its malignity revealed, but its limitations also, xiii. 118 ; 
— its dreadful character and tendency, xviii. 156 — 8. 

-r — its forgiveness to be sought earnestly, 179 — 80. 

Sin and misery, extent of, vast in our view, yet the least pos- 
sible, xiii. 112 — 13; — relatively minute, 114—16; — we 
should look beyond their limits, 116 and 120. 

Spiritual good, the very desire of it a blessing, xvi. 139. 

Spiritual influence deeply important, from the power it may 
exercise on the succession of thought, vii. 55 and 58 — 60 ;— 
weak and wicked to deride it, 61 ; — affirmed, together with 
the duty of prayer, by some Heathen philosophers, A. 289. 

• insensibility or torpor how to be combated, xiv. 128 — 

31 ; — should lead to prayer, xvi. 142 — 3. 

Stuart Dugald, on trains of thought, vii. 54 ; — difficulty in his 
theory, 59, 60. 

Supplication, specific, duty of, xii. 105—6. 

Symbols or signs of thought less important than we may ac- 
count them, ii. 12, 13, and xxiii. 211 — 12. 



Thornton, H., his injunction against the expression of grati- 
tude, xix. 172—3. 

Thoughts here contained, not designed for the most eminent 
Christians, Pref. x. xi. 

some of their topics trite but important, xviii. 

are meant to be catholic, xxii. 

on the power of God to correct, xxi. 184 — 6. 

■ of our best hope might occupy vacant moments, xxiii. 
212—13. 

■ often unconsciously borrowed, D. 302 — 3. 

Thought permanent, while its signs perish, ii. 14. 

■ its succession inexplicable, vii. 53 — 4. 

Trials, some kinds of, incline us to prayer, xvii. 144—5. 

others tend to distract us in, or divert us from it, 



146—7. 

U. 

Unbelief may so prevail as to frustrate prayer, xxiv. 227—8. 
its connexion with various modes of moral evil. 

242—4. 

cannot supersede or annul the duty of prayer, 244—5. 



Universe, its vastness, treated of in the Electic Review, D. 
302. 



INDEX. 343 



V. 

Vacillation, probable of those who reject Christianity, F. 319 

—20. 
Vacuum, moral, does not exist in the mind, xxiv. 226 — 7- 
Visions not to be borne without miraculous aid, xxvii. 273. 

W. 

Wavering or insincerity, when habitual in prayer, destroys its 

efficacy, xxiv. 231 — 2. 
1 occasional, does not warrant despondency, 234—8. 



THE END. 



LONDON : 

HENRY BAYLIS, JOHNSON'S-COURT, FLEET-STREET. 



y ■/ r i pi g 




BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



In 2 Vols., 12mo., Price 14s., 
THE DIVINE ORIGIN OP CHRISTIANITY, 

DEDUCED FROM SOME OF THOSE EVIDENCES WHICH ARE 
NOT FOUNDED ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF SCRIPTURE. 



" In reviewing these volumes we cannot but have received a deep im- 
pression of their value, and a strong feeling of gratitude, that so copious a 
body of information, hitherto accessible only to a few scholars and men of 
leisure, is here placed within the reach of popular readers, made attractive 
even to those whose minds are not inured to literary toil, and applied by 
calm, judicious, and powerful reasoning to the most beneficial of all intel- 
lectual and practical purposes." — Eclectic Review. 

" The Author of this Work is well known to the public by his beautiful 
little Work on Private Devotion ; the present is of an entirely different 
character, but does no less credit to his talents, his learning, and his acute- 
ness. He is quite a Baxter for his scrupulosity in weighing and balancing 
proofs, and much more judicious in his manner of arguing them. The work 
is in some danger of repelling superficial readers ; both the arrangement and 
the learning of it require more study than they who wish to arrive at the 
knowledge of all science and art by the shortest road, are generally disposed 
to give to any subject. But the lover of close argument and satisfactory 
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volumes." — Orme's Life of Baxter, V. II. p. 35. 

" We recollect no writer who has availed himself so fully, and made so 
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indirect, extraneous, and even hostile matter, as Mr. Sheppard has done ; 
and his work is of great value for the comparative originality of its mate- 
rials, the extent of its research, the acuteness of its remarks, the candour of 
its statements, the force of its reasoning, and the direct and conclusive bear- 
ing of every part of it on the * Divine Origin of Christianity.' " — Christian 
Observer, Appendix, 1830, p. 808. 



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